Nikon coolscan 3 connections

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Nebular89

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Brand new user :)
So I just received a Nikon coolscan 3. The scanner came without any cables other than a power cable. I know it’s an SCSI connection but I can’t seem to find any SCSI to usb. I have vuescan which should support it but atm it’s dead in the water.
Is there any other solutions that won’t cost a lot? As in sub £30. I looked at a SCSI card to mount to my motherboard but aside from changing a graphics card I’m not that technically minded.
Also how much money is it worth pumping in to get the scanner working? I’d only print 5x7-8x10 so doesn’t need to be earth shatteringly good

Cheers!!
 
right so that is called 68 pin SCSI and as above male to male with the correct PCI SCSI card , do you have a spare PCI slot on your motherbaord.

if so you need something like this below
www.ebay.co.uk

Adaptec ASC-29160N SCSI Controller Card | eBay

I really don't know what to say about this one chief.
www.ebay.co.uk

a SCSI host adapter
 
Mr Bump said:
right so that is called 68 pin SCSI and as above male to male with the correct PCI SCSI card , do you have a spare PCI slot on your motherbaord.

if so you need something like this below
www.ebay.co.uk

Adaptec ASC-29160N SCSI Controller Card | eBay

I really don't know what to say about this one chief.
www.ebay.co.uk

a SCSI host adapter
Click to expand...
I’m not at home atm but I think I do, just a graphics card.
Cheers, I’ll give that adaptor a bid :)
 
I ended up putting a card in an XP machine, had trouble with driver compatibility on anything after XP.
Dunno if that's still a thing on later iterations of win, spose you could use an emulator, I dunno, it sounds too much of a faff tbh.
I think I'd be checking the scanner specs for their recommendation of a card too.
And no, I never did bottom a straight scsi to usb arrangement that actually worked on anything..
 
joxby said:
I ended up putting a card in an XP machine, had trouble with driver compatibility on anything after XP.
Dunno if that's still a thing on later iterations of win, spose you could use an emulator, I dunno, it sounds too much of a faff tbh.
I think I'd be checking the scanner specs for their recommendation of a card too.
And no, I never did bottom a straight scsi to usb arrangement that actually worked on anything..
Click to expand...
Was the coolscan 3? Just wondering if you thought the scanner was worth the effort.
Hopefully it will work with vuescan. I did have an Epson that I used to scan a few 4x5 negatives I had, windows 10 didn’t recognise that but vuescan did so hopefully if I can connect it it’ll be same story :s
 
Nebular89 said:
Was the coolscan 3? Just wondering if you thought the scanner was worth the effort.
Hopefully it will work with vuescan. I did have an Epson that I used to scan a few 4x5 negatives I had, windows 10 didn’t recognise that but vuescan did so hopefully if I can connect it it’ll be same story :s
Click to expand...
No, it was a Minolta multi scan pro but the problems with getting legacy equipment to work with the new are the same.
I don't think you'll have a lot of trouble getting scan software to run the scanner, it was the drivers for the card that caused me the headaches, ie...getting the card to function on a modern pc.
I had plenty of junk pc's running older windows versions so I used one of those running XP just for scanning, dunno if I'd have gone to the faff if everything I had had been win 10.
The Coolscans and Minoltas are better than decent dedicated scanners, they are worth a shot if you can run them without having to buy too many extra bits to make them compatible.
I'm not an expert on scsi compatibility, I'm just detailing for the record what I did to get an scsi scanner to run.
Couldn't find a straight usb to scsi cable that actually worked with the scanner.
Couldn't get the scsi card to work with win 7 or 8.
No problems with XP though, the scan software was Minolta's and XP compatible, a bit win98 looking, but I'm sure viewscan would have worked fine on XP.
 
I bought a Nikon Coolscan III many years ago to try and digitise my (extensive!) 35mm colour slide collection. I never had much success with it and eventually gave up and turned to a failrly cheap and run of the mill A4 Canon flatbed scanner instead - which came with carriers for 35mm film strips and slides. At least for my purposes, this did a better job and is much quicker and more convenient for processing any significant number of slides. The problem was that the Coolscan's resolution is not great by today's standards and it really zaps up the contrast. So I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of time or money on it.
 
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StuartUK said:
I bought a Nikon Coolscan III many years ago to try and digitise my (extensive!) 35mm colour slide collection. I never had much success with it and eventually gave up and turned to a failrly cheap and run of the mill A4 Canon flatbed scanner instead - which came with carriers for 35mm film strips and slides. At least for my purposes, this did a better job and is much quicker and more convenient for processing any significant number of slides. The problem was that the Coolscan's resolution is not great by today's standards and it really zaps up the contrast. So I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of time or money on it.
Click to expand...
I tried an epson flatbad and the 35mm scans were really poor out of it. Ive had good results from my digital camera but it’s such a faff to set up and I never print bigger than 5x7. I’ll give it a whirl and sell it on if it’s not for, I won’t be in it for much money :)
 
I have a Nikon Coolscan II which is also SCSI. I used Adaptec SCSI cards, and had PCMCIA (?) SCSI adaptor to use it on an IBM ThinkPad. The results (with Kodachrome) were inferior to the scans from the various Epson flatbeds I've use, from the 3200 onwards.

The one warning I'll give you is that SCSI chains normally require terminating, and my Coolscan came with a terminating resistor to connect to the scanner if there was no cable connection to the next device. The presence of two connections on the back of yours makes me wonder...
 
All I can say is that I’m glad to be going 100 % wet printing ( though that itself isn’t without its own ´complications’.)

Sorry I can’t help with your dilemma, fortunately others can.

I can however empathise with the frustrations having encountered many with devices that choose to be in and out of love with each other.

Personally I find it seriously stressful……

Hope you get sorted quickly and without (too much) cost.
 
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StephenM said:
I have a Nikon Coolscan II which is also SCSI. I used Adaptec SCSI cards, and had PCMCIA (?) SCSI adaptor to use it on an IBM ThinkPad. The results (with Kodachrome) were inferior to the scans from the various Epson flatbeds I've use, from the 3200 onwards.

The one warning I'll give you is that SCSI chains normally require terminating, and my Coolscan came with a terminating resistor to connect to the scanner if there was no cable connection to the next device. The presence of two connections on the back of yours makes me wonder...
Click to expand...
I did read about that, the coolscan 3 has a switch on the back with terminator above it. Maybe it has something built it? Assuming yours doesn’t have that?

In terms of quality I’ll give it blast. If it’s sub par then I’ll stick with my camera. Speed graphic sell a Valoi 35mm holder that seems decent for £40 and there are some cheap ish copy stands. I had an Epson v550 which I only used for 120 in the end.
 
Asha said:
All I can say is that I’m glad to be going 100 % wet printing ( though that itself isn’t without its own ´complications’.)

Sorry I can’t help with your dilemma, fortunately others can.

I can however empathise with the frustrations having encountered many with devices that choose to be in and out of love with each other.

Personally I find it seriously stressful……

Hope you get sorted quickly and without (too much) cost.
Click to expand...
I owned a 35mm colour enlarger that I used for black and white a few years ago. I really liked it but it took up wwaayyy too much space. Plus I dominated the bathroom and a bedroom that I had blacked out when I used it! I wasn’t popular at home :D.
I’ve gone all in on film over the last 5 years or so, enlarger, Leica, couple of 120 cameras. I’ve scaled it back significantly over the last year but having gone all in I know where to spend money at least. 5x7 is pretty much the biggest I print with a few exceptions so an expensive scanning set up isn’t necessary. I only have a canon a1 and a praktica fx2 I just got now and I enjoy it more than when I had of expensive equipment
 
Some SCSI devices did have a simple way to terminate, so you're probably fine. I hate terminating resistors, ever since the problems I met with thick ethernet termination some 30-40 years ago.
 
fun fact, the praktica fx2 has a film gate with scope to be widened to 70mm
there are very few 35mm film cameras like that
yeah it has a wlf, yeah its coolz but the potential it has for a pano hack......is cooler....:)
 
joxby said:
fun fact, the praktica fx2 has a film gate with scope to be widened to 70mm
there are very few 35mm film cameras like that
yeah it has a wlf, yeah its coolz but the potential it has for a pano hack......is cooler....:)
Click to expand...
Hello….my ears have pricked up!! How would that work with winding film on?
 
There are lots of difficulties with hacking an xpanny sized 35mm camera, I always envisaged film transport to be the most problematic.
Lens coverage and focusing all appear to be, if not simple, doable without hugely destructive surgery.
A 65-70 film aperture is 2 wind-ons, with no spacing issues, you're probably not going to be cocking shutters with it so in its simplest hack....shoot your scene, wind on, cover the lens and shoot a frame.
Most 35mm film cameras do not have the scope around the film aperture to remove enough material.

There are far easier ways to shoot a 70mm frame, but not with the form factor of a 35mm film camera

one of these days I'll make it a project, the camera I choose to destroy and fail miserably with will be a praktica fx2..:D
 
The problem not mentioned that I foresee is fitting a lens with a large enough image circle to cover a double frame. I suspect that even a shift lens for a 35mm camera wouldn't do the job.
 
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