Nikon Coolscan V ED scanner vs Minolta DiMage Scan Multi Pro scanner

You may have read in my previous post “A grey day in January over at Sopley Common” that I had purchased a new (ish) scanner. Up until recently I had a Nikon Coolscan V ED scanner for scanning 35mm negatives and slides, however I have found that Nikon Coolscan V ED colour management struggled with slides, both colour representation and showing details in shadows. This led me down several avenues, which ultimately led me to buying the Minolta DiMage Scan Multi Pro scanner.

I spent a lot of time searching the web, visiting several different forums to try and find a solution. One regular theme was to purchase IT8 targets and profile the scanner, and there were a couple of sources for these targets. I purchased mine from Wolf Faust via their website www.coloraid.de and followed this tutorial (with a free calibration software link) to calibrate the Nikon Coolscan V ED. Although this improved the colour appearance it did not improve the details in the shadows.

I finally bit the bullet, and obtained a second hand Minolta DiMage Scan Multi Pro scanner. I decided on this after reading Ken Rockwells review. The two scanned images below of the same photograph show the difference in rendition of the shadows, and as you will see the Minolta DiMage Scan Multi Pro scanner shot does show more detail. I deliberately used a shot (Fuji Velvia 50) where there was a lot of shadow and where there was a high range between the highlights and shadows.

The Minolta DiMage Scan Multi Pro scanned image.

The Nikon Coolscan V ED scanned image.

To may be seen this more clearly here is part of the image viewed at 100 %.

The Nikon Coolscan V ED image

and now the Minolta DiMage Scan Multi Pro image

I hope that you can see the greater detail in the grass and the rocks on the Minolta DiMage Scan Multi Pro image.