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Nikon Scan 4.0.2, Windows Vista RC1, and Slide Jamming

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A few weeks ago, I purchased a Nikon Super COOLSCAN 5000 ED and the SF-210 slide feeder accessory. My dad has somewhere around 2,000 old 35mm slides that I'd like to help him get into a digital format. It's been years and years since I've seen most of the photos, and there are many that I've never seen at all. And scanning four slides at a time on my Epson Perfection 2450 PHOTO would take forever. The Nikon SF-210 accessory will feed up to 50 slides at once...much more convenient!

So, I installed Windows Vista RC1 on my home machine this past Friday. I didn't notice it at the time, but Vista wasn't able to automatically find a scanner driver for my new Nikon (I didn't do an upgrade...I reformatted my hard drive and started fresh). I popped the Nikon Scan CD into the drive, but it wouldn't install. Remembering the Program Compatibility Wizard, I fired it up, manually pointed to the Welcome.exe file in the root folder of the CD, selected Microsoft Windows XP (Service Pack 2) as the compatible operating system, told it to run as an administrator, left everything else at default settings, and the Nikon driver and associated software installed perfectly. I've been running automatic scans all day, and everything is working as-expected.

Since I'm writing about 35mm slide scanning, I thought I'd throw in another tidbit that will help people that are using the SF-210 to scan their own slides. The SF-210 is a pricey unit...pricey enough that you'd think it could reliably feed almost any slide. But, for many of the older cardboard mounted slides, it likes to jam. Of course, this happens as soon as you leave the room. :)

I did some searching on the 'net and found a guy who drastically improved his scan success rate by wedging a wooden dowel between the white plastic "pusher" and the slides. I didn't have a wooden dowel, so I tried a AAA battery (see photo), and it works beautifully! The battery has the effect of "fanning" the right side of the slides so that the next slide to be scanned is clearly out of the way and won't catch on the slide that's currently being fed. This works for thinner slides, slides that have a cardboard mount, and slides that are slightly warped. I still have the occasional jam, but it's much better than it was before. Hope it helps you too!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 15, 2006
    The price for the SF-210 is more like $320 (new) on eBay, or $1300 with the LS5000 scanner.

  • Anonymous
    February 23, 2007
    Dale Austin posts another great looking solution to this problem: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mrwizard/macgyver/colorscan4000.html

  • Anonymous
    April 22, 2007
    The AAA battery trick didn't work too well. It is too large diameter, and fans the slodes so much that the first slide sometimes is too angled away from the face of the unit, and jams against the metal gate. I used a piece of bamboo skewer perhaps 1/8 inch in diameter, in the same location, taped to the pusher, which helped. This, coupled with weakening the spring force by lengthening the spring with a piece of paper clip, as described on another web site, make most of the jams disappear.

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2009
    I too have this setup and have been in the  process of scanning about 10,000 slides.  But, I am having a difficult time finding a good general default set of settings.  Any suggestions?  What did you end up using on most of your slides?  Thanks.