Nikon Coolscan IV ED USB Film Scanner

by Nikon

Product Details

• Item Weight: 6.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 20 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000059Z3U
• Item model number: Coolscan IV
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #25 in Electronics > Camera & Photo > Printers & Scanners > Slide & Film Scanners
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 15, 2001

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

With instant installation via a USB connection, the Nikon Coolscan IV ED is just moments away from processing your film at an impressive rate of 42 seconds per image. It's able to handle slides or 35mm film rolls, and with the addition of a simple adapter, you can take on Advanced Photo System film just as easily. With a dynamic range of 3.6 and 42-bit images, the scanner guarantees clean images and vivid detail. It's compatible with Macintosh and PC, and it comes with a software package of Altamira Genuine Fractals, Photoshop LE, and Canto Cumulus.

From the Manufacturer

The Nikon Coolscan IV ED personal film scanner bridges the gap between film and digital. The perfect complement to a 35mm SLR camera, this high-quality film scanner combines Nikon's Scanner Nikkor ED glass lens with an LED light source for incredible, consistent color and sharpness. The Coolscan IV ED integrates Digital ICE3 Image Enhancement technology into Nikon Scan 3 software for automatic removal of surface defects, restoration of color, and film grain minimization from scans of 35mm strip or slide film and Advanced Photo System film (IX240).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

108 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Does Everything it promises and then some!, July 19, 2001

By 

Guy Terry (Little Elm, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nikon Coolscan IV ED USB Film Scanner (Office Product)

I had planned to buy a Coolscan III from E-bay to catalog my extensive negative collection, because I couldn't afford the LS-2000. With the SCSI interface and the other technical difficulties of the Coolscan III, I was a little hesitant. Then came the Coolscan IV ED. This scanner and software package offered everything that the LS-2000 did, and is much easier to use and operate. I have not used Digital GEM or ROC, but the Digital ICE is amazing. My brother, a photojournalist, thought that allowing the scanner to automatically remove scratches was silly, since it could be done (so he thought) much faster and better in PhotoShop. After trying two scans of the same frame, he never scanned without the Digital Ice turned on again! The negatives I have are from the middle east, and are very scratched. Fortunately, the Nikon Coolscan IV has a forth, infrared channel that can detect what is a scratch and what is a line on the negative, and remove the scratch without any hint of what damage was on the negative. Using USB (compared to SCSI) with the ICE on makes for a longer scan time that doesn't get much shorter with lower resolution. I have something else open (I'm scanning now) while I work with it, but the results are worth the wait. There is some noise in the lighter tones (negatives, haven't used slides but the noise would be in the darker tones there) but I may try an aftermarket scanner software called Vuescan to eliminate that with multi-pass scanning. The CSIV doesn't support multi-pass scans, but with some aftermarket software it will. The Nikon Scan software is a little strange, and there's not much that's user friendly about it, but if you have a good working knowledge of PhotoShop, PhotoImpact, etc., then youshould understand the controls enough to experiment and figure everything out. If you are a professional photographer looking for something that will allow 11 by 14" enlargement from a 35mm negative, or just an ambitious amateur, driven by the peer pressure of your professional photog dad and brother, this scanner is the one!

87 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Film Scanner, July 17, 2001

By 

CAPoiDog "capoidog" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nikon Coolscan IV ED USB Film Scanner (Office Product)

The technology in this device delivers outstanding scans with little effort. The dynamic range is typically better than camera shot film and the color fidelity is outstanding. I attribute this to the RGB LED illumination system that is very well calibrated. Without ICE on, the scans are quick at 40 seconds or so. However, the ICE algorithms chew up a lot of CPU cycles and slow down the process considerably. The good news is that you can easily batch scan and walk away from the scanner for as long as it needs to process.

The software is clunky and nowhere near as powerful as it could be, but Nikon isn't known for software anyway. I haven't encountered any crashes or weird behavior from the unit, but I think that earlier software was pretty buggy judging from some of the reviews I saw on other boards.

I've scanned over a hundred rolls of "legacy" film to build up a digital library of family pictures. I can't say enough about the image quality. ICE is a marvel. It eliminates scratches, dust, film grain and can reconstruct color from faded film.

I've been working with digital photographic systems for over 10 years, starting with high end laser film recorders, so I know a few things about the subject. If you need a film scanner and are willing to shell out more than a few bucks, this is a top-notch product.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best way to go for scanning negatives, November 5, 2003

By 

Travel & Tech (Northern California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Nikon Coolscan IV ED USB Film Scanner (Office Product)

The Coolscan IV is definitely worth the price for scanning negatives. I looked at flatbed scanners and cheaper film scanners previously, but in the end I bit the bullet and bought the Coolscan. I have no regrets about doing this. The resolution of the scanned negatives is amazing - I can see details that were not visible the original prints. What really makes the investment worthwhile is the Digital ICE technology, which "cleans up" dusty or imperfect negatives. I am in the process of converting my entire film library into digital images.

This brings me to the downsides of the scanner. It does not utilize USB 2.0, and the process of scanning negatives at high resolutions is very very slow. I basically have to devote 45 minutes to an hour to scan in a roll of film because I have turned on Digital ICE as well as the other touch-up features available on the scanner. However, this is by choice, so for people who don't want the highest resolutions, the process may be somewhat faster. The other problem is that the included software is very powerful but has a steep learning curve. I spent a lot of initial time tweaking the settings to find what produced the best images.

Overall, though, the gripes are minor since the quality of the images is so high. This has changed how I take pictures now. Since the resolution of the digital images is higher than any reasonably priced digital camera on the market, I am now shooting most pictures with a film camera and scanning the negatives. This provides the best of both worlds - a set of cheap prints as well as high-quality digital images. Now I just need to get another hard drive to hold all the images that I am scanning in...