Microtek 120tf vs Nicon 9000 ED

I am pleased with the Nikon. I previously had the Minolta Multi Pro (i sold it due to a financial barren patch and the low amount of scanning i was doing at the time).

The fact that Nikon can batch scan 3 6x6 slides is very handy. As for the film flatness i've solved that problem today with the help of a fellow photo.neter. Got some non-glare glass cut to the right size, removed the locking clips from the standard 120 film strip holder and hey-presto great scans. I've had no problems with the Nikonscan software either. I find it very intuitive and have had no crashing problems. One thing that i didn't realise is just how big the 9000 is though. It's a hell of a lot bigger than the Multi Pro. My desk is pretty full to be honest :0)

The one caveat here is newton's rings. Whether they'll raise their ugly head remains to be seen, but i'm smiling for the time being.

Anyway, not the perfect answer as i can't give you any opinion on the Microtek scanner but thought i'd air my thoughts on the 9000.

As Dan and others have found - unless you can keep the film flat using a glass carrier you will struggle to get optimal sharpness right across a scan - I can't see the Microtek being any different in this respect.

I'll hope Microtek improved things over the (mostly identical) scanner they made for Polaroid as the Sprintscan 120. My Sprintscan 120 was a total nightmare.

It took me three tries to get one whose color misregistration was only 3 pixels. Not slide the channel in Photoshop misregistration, mind you, but a come-and-go throughout the length of the scan misregistration.

The scanner's saving grace, vs. the Nikon 8000 anyway, is that its non-collimated light source made it do a much better job with holding highlights in traditional silver-based b&w. I could deal with even ultra-dense pushed TMY by scanning in color and masking differently exposed color channels together. But it was a pain. And the head movement was still inconsistent enough that fine high-contrast diagonal lines looked distinctly wavy. Then a month after warranty it died--just powered down in the middle of a scan and refused to come back. Now it's on its way to Polaroid for $600 in repairs.

The only other advantage it had vs. the Nikon was less sensitivitiy to film flatness. I'll make a wild guess--the Polaroid was always just a hair sharper in the blue channel than the red, which makes we think the optics were stopped down more, to the point where they were just past diffraction limited--red diffracts more than blue. Again, just a wild guess. The film holder wasn't that bad, but not that great either--I have trouble believing it was the reason for the film-flatness-sensitivity advantage vs. the Nikon.

A couple of nits with the film holders--the 120 holder has a vertical surface close enough to the edge of the image area that about a millimeter or so gets "extra" illumination from light bouncing off the vertical surface. A nail file fixed this pretty quickly. The 35mm holder has bars between the frames. As long as your camera has accurate, standard frame spacing this is fine, but if you've got a camera like my Leningrad that has wonky frame spacing you can only scan one frame at a time. The holders also depend on friction against the edges of the film to hold them closed. Kodak Technical Pan is thinner than standard emulsions, and doesn't provide enough resistance. I had about a 30% incidence of the holder coming open during a batch of scans with Tech Pan.

Meanwhile, waiting for repairs, I acquired an ancient (1996) Screen 1045ai drum scanner. Scanner + repairs (because the #$%& morons who sold it to me forgot to secure the head for shipping!) only cost me $3500, and the scans are so much better than the Polaroid, and it has so many fewer surprises it's worth the hassle. The Polaroid will probaby be ebayed off once it comes back from repairs--only because taking a hammer to it after paying for repairs seems like awfully expensive satisfaction.

One big advantage of the Microtek it the SilverFast Software! Very good piece of software. If you buy the Nikon and still want Silverfast u gotta pay around $500. The results are very good. I still like the Nikons a bit better!

take care,

Dirk

Thanks for your input, really appreciate it!

I'm a bit surprised to see the Microtek and Nikon in this comparison but not the Minolta. The Microtek is often not in the running because it lacks hardware dust removal. The Microtek has a higher spec for 35mm and is often well-reviewed. Here's an index to a number of reviews. The "how to select a scanner" gives a (slanted) comparison of the three above, "the Nikon" being the older 8000 in this context. Note that it fares well.

http://steves-digicams.com/scanners.html

I got the Nikon 9000 for the simple reason that it was the newest, and the other manufacturers weren't putting anything out at this time. It's big, slow, noisy, and needs a glass carrier. But I'm satisfied with it, because I haven't identified any flaws in its output. Perhaps the drum scanner folks and the comparitive reviewers can help us further.

Mad: I started off by considering the Nikon and the Minolta and decided to go for the Nikon (omitting the reasons for that here, but the fact that the Nikon was new did play a part).

Victor,

I am working with the Microtek 120tf for almost one year now, 6x9, 24x36 and 24x66. I had compared all 3 available MF scanners and liked the Microtek best because pictures looked crisper and more dynamic, also colors more saturated thanks to bundeled Silverfast. Difference between Dmin and Dmax is much better than the other two, that means you have less noise and better shadow details without doing multiple scans. The german COLORFOTO did technical tests (not analysing theoretical specs and the rhetorical blabla) and the 120tf came top. Prices in Europe puts the 120tf almost halve as the others. Glass film holder is a must for MF. This one cost almost 1/3 of the Nikon one and has the advantage that it has the top glass slidly diffused helping eleminating grain of fast films. Would I have to replace it for one reason or another, I would buy it again.

Jo

I agree with Victor. Both scanners are similiarly priced and both offer great photo reproduction. If you need the ability of hardware Digital ICE then I would sway towards the Nikon. If you are looking for solid and vivid colors then I would lean towards Microtek. As some have mentioned, Microtek makes optics and other components for quite a few of the scanner manufacturers today and I've never had a problem with their quality so I would look into the 120tf.