Minolta 5400 scanner

Hi Guys

Im thinking of buying the new Minolta 5400 scanner r the Canon FS 4000. Im wondering if anyone here has used it. If so how have you found it. I have heard mixed reviews. (people saying grain is an issue )

Any help will be appreciate

Thanks
Peter

Tim Grey wrote a piece on it in a recent DDQ. His complaint with the scanner is that it does not work well with Digital ICE and he therefore continues to recommend the Nikon 4000 scanner over this one.

It's not as good as the Nikon 8000ED (which I guess is very similar to the 4000ED), but for the price I think it has little competition. I've bought it to do 13x19 prints at home on my Epson 2200 and am very happy with it. I always use Digital ICE and there is a little more grain compared to the Nikons.

It has very good dynamic range (maby slightly better than the Nikons) and when grain is a problem I do minor adjustments in Neat Image to remove it - works like a charm! The Canon I don't know about. I'd rather have the Minolta at half the price of the Nikon 4000ED, and do real drum scans for critical work - The grain isn't a problem at all in 13x19 prints, and for 35mm trannies to be printed larger I will continue to use a proffessional printer and lab.

PS! I have only scanned Velvia 50, Astia 100 and Provia 100, so I can't say anything for other films and how they work with the scanner!

I will post a link to some samples on my homepage in a couple of days so you can see a crop @ 100% size of a 5400dpi scan.

I missed the question relative to the Canon 4000 - it is not in the same league as the Nikon from a Dynamic range perspective, software perspective, and Digital Ice3 is far superior to the noise reduction and correction S/W provided by Canon. One thing you will learn about Canon, if you utilize their products, is that their software is invariably inferior to the other alternatives regardless of the product.

thanks for the help guy, will let you all know what I plunge for. Sveingud one question, I notice in your post that you mentioned something called "Neat IMage" what kind of software is this?

Well, it could be the best thing since sliced bread, but really it isn't. It's a cheap little program that removes digital noise from scans and digital images. When you have mastered it's interface it's superb, especially for cleaning up ISO noise in digital files, retouching portraits, removing grain from scans etc. I've used it with great results. The new version alo has a PS plugin. The pro version works with 16-bit files as well.

Check out http://www.neatimage.com