PC FireWire interface to Nikon Coolscan film scanners

[MEPER]

FireWire interface seems not to be standard on new PC's.
My Coolscan 9000 ED can only be connected via FireWire 400.
Are there any adapters that can convert FireWire to e.g. USB-C?

[Birna Rørslett]

Apparently not trivial. Firewire>thunderbolt>USB rigs are suggested on several net sites.

I connect my Coolscans 4000/8000 through a Firewire PCI card in a Thinkpad laptop.

[MEPER]

Ok, seems the only real solution is to get a PC where a FireWire PCI card can be installed.
In my current HP stationary PC FireWire seems to be a Motherboard feature. The PC is a i7 CPU 860 @ 2.8 GHz based configuration and is quite old and slow but still running.
But I think it is time to upgrade when it still runs. Many i5's today are much faster and relative cheap. The old PC can't run Win11.

[Birna Rørslett]

It's easier to run a scanner under Win7/10. However, if you are using software like VueScan instead of Nikon Scan or Silverfast, Win11 might work as well.  If memory serves, I have a Win11 box which can scan through my 4000ED. (not used for some time,though)

[MEPER]

I have VueScan x64.
Long time since I used it. I remember new updates regularly. I wonder how the license work for a new PC. Was it a license key og whatever. Forgot all about that.
I may keep the old PC as a backup. I am quite sure it started as a Win7 PC and then updated to Win10.
It is my plan to scan old family negatives and also maybe start scanning my slides and view them on the TV-monitor but it is a hard job.
Then the slides could be taken out of the magazines and stored more "compressed" so they don't take up so much space. Then the cassettes/magazines could be trashed as recycle plastic.
The view-screen and stand for the projector could get out of the way also.
But it is a long process......
The projector is a "modern" Rollei that also do 6x6 which includes a very nice Rolleivision 66 AV-Apogon 2.8/120.
Such a projector is probably not worth much today.
I have wondered if the projector lens can have some photographic value on digital cameras via an adapter.
If the value is low then why not have some fun out of it?
I selected a 120mm lens so it could be used for both 35mm and 6x6 slides to keep the distance to the screen for 35mm slides at a reasonable distance.
But this is history now. At least 10 years ago I used it last time. But it is far the best projector I ever had. The alignment is very good so both center and corners are in perfect focus at the same time.

[toups]

Regarding connecting Firewire to a computer, currently the only reliable option is to use a PCIe card in a "desktop" computer.  PCIe Firewire cards are still available and fairly inexpensive.  For a laptop computer with an ExpressCard slot, the Firewire ExpressCards appear to be out of stock everywhere although occasionally a NOS one appears on E-Bay.

Spent a lot of time researching the Firewire>Thunderbolt option but did not find a definitive result that showed it working with a Firewire camera (which was the application I needed.)  There were lots of reports of failure and some success with Firewire audio devices so I decided not to go that way.

So for a portable system, rather than a laptop, I built a small form factor desktop system using a ASRock N100DC-ITX motherboard, a PCCOOLER CPS K101 MESH PC Case and a standard PCIe Firewire card.

FWIW, I accidentally acquired an antique PCMCIA Firewire card confusing it with a ExpressCard but laptops haven't had PCMCIA interfaces for a long time.  Also newer computers that have ExpressCard slots are very rarely seen.  Of course after putting the system together, I managed to snag a FireWire ExpressCard for use in a very old laptop. 

[ColinM]

Is this really your only option to scan the film Meper?
Is your only option to use a scanner that requires Firewire?
I've not used Nikon scanners but my Minolra one connects via USB

[MEPER]

My only filmscanner is the CS 9000 ED which only has Firewire interface.
Other option is to use a digital camera with a film attachment. It would be faster that way.
I had hoped a box existed that could convert Firewire to USB that could work without problems.

[Jürgen Pfeiffer]

Hello Meper,
I don't know how long a 9000ED takes for a single scan. I once had a Nikon scanner with a SCSI connection, and it definitely took a minute. So if you have more than a few hundred slides or negatives, I would recommend a digital camera with a slide copier attachment. I'm currently digitising two thick file folders full of old negatives, and it only takes a few minutes to get a 36-exposure film onto the hard drive.

[MEPER]

I have a PB-6 bellows with slide attachment which could be useful. So for the many hundred slides such a setup will probably be the best.
But for some old BW rollfilm (120) and a few 35mm slides I want to get a little bit extra quality from I would like to use the 9000 ED.
I still have my current PC with FW-interface but this PC will probably not last forever.

I also have many many 35mm negatives (I trashed a lot of the family albums caused by lack of space when my mothers house was sold but still have the negatives).
For color negatives the scanner has nice features like "anti-scratch", "anti-dust" (in hardware) and also the ability the "reverse" to positive.

I have never tried using a digital camera with slide copy setup and use it for color negatives (or BW negatives). But it can probably be done and then do the reserving as a batch job on a PC with some dedicated software?

[Jürgen Pfeiffer]

This is my setup: Nikon Z6 with PB6 bellows and slide copying unit, a 63mm EL-Nikkor in reverse position, lighting with 5000K LED light panel. The Z6 has a specially created PictureControl setting that inverts the tonal values, allowing for positive viewing of the negative. The whole thing is tethered to Capture One, and shooting the negatives is very fast. With LiveView, I can see immediately whether digitisation is worthwhile.
Post-processing is then done in Capture One. Converting colour negatives is a bit tricky but also possible. Unfortunately, anti-scratch and anti-dust have to be done manually.
For my negatives, which I shot in the 80s with Ilford FP4 and HP5, medium RAW (5176x3448px) on the Z6 is perfectly adequate.

[MEPER]

Nice setup. Thank you very much for the display of the work bench!
I could probably set up something horizontal. I have a small light panel. Maybe an iTTL-flash would also work. Still have the old SC-17 TTL cable.
Will check if NX Studio also has the reverse feature.
The 63mm EL-Nikkor I miss in my collection but I have 50 and 80mm enlarger lenses and also a Micro Nikkor 55/2.8 which can probably do the job.

With the camera vertical on a stand you could probably also do 6x6, 6x9 direct on the light panel (glass plate to hold it flat)?

[Jürgen Pfeiffer]

I created the Picture Control preset in Nikon's Picture Control Utility app. Now, this can be done directly in NX Studio by changing the Picture Control settings accordingly and then exporting them to the camera. It is now also possible to invert the RGB channels individually and perform white balance, allowing for a basic conversion from colour negative to positive.
When this Picture Control setting is selected in the camera, the Live View image appears as a positive in NX Tether or other tethering apps, for example, making it easier to assess the image effect.
Because of this image control, continuous lighting is also more advantageous than flash lighting.
The bellows may be a little too long for the EL-Nikkor 50mm in reverse position, but this lens can also be used quite well in the normal position.
The vertical camera position has several advantages, including making it much easier to reproduce larger film formats. I use glassless film holders from the darkroom era whenever possible (where there is no glass surface, dust cannot settle).
Here is an example of a 6x12 colour negative digitised with the Z6 and 6048 pixels in width, below which is a 2000-pixel-wide section.

[MEPER]

It gives very nice results. Thank you for that example.
For my 35mm slides (typical Velvia or Provia) I exposed them a bit "thick" (slightly underexposed). This to avoid burned out white clouds etc. For my projector setup this gave the most impressive projected slides (rich colors etc.).
But for scanning using the 9000ED the dark shadow details disappeared and went almost black. The details where fully visible in the projected image. I sometimes exposed a slide for scanning use. But using a digital camera and a light table or flash the light can be controlled which can be an advantage to give it a bit more exposure to pull out the shadow details. Combining two exposures may also be possible (HDR).
So a lot of stuff to play with. I have not yet used my camera connected to a PC so all this is new to me. I will probably use NX Studio as much as I can.

For old 120 film taken with amateur cameras many years ago even my Z50 can pull out all the details. Often low shutter speeds where used and camera handhold so they are often not that sharp :-)
Repro from family albums if negatives does not exist anymore is also possible.
The very old BW paper pictures in my old family albums that are around 80-100 years old or more often looks like they where taken yesterday but many of much more recent color paper images looks very "vintage". Some paper types worse than others :-)        my darkroom Ilfochrome prints still looks like new. I never did Kodak dye transfer. I have read you should be a bit "mad" to try that.

[Hugh_3170]

Nice work Jürgen.

It might be worth setting up a "how to" thread for others about to undertake this work - especially with colour negatives, which you are clearly well on top of.

I created the Picture Control preset in Nikon's Picture Control Utility app. Now, this can be done directly in NX Studio by changing the Picture Control settings accordingly and then exporting them to the camera. It is now also possible to invert the RGB channels individually and perform white balance, allowing for a basic conversion from colour negative to positive.
When this Picture Control setting is selected in the camera, the Live View image appears as a positive in NX Tether or other tethering apps, for example, making it easier to assess the image effect.
Because of this image control, continuous lighting is also more advantageous than flash lighting.
The bellows may be a little too long for the EL-Nikkor 50mm in reverse position, but this lens can also be used quite well in the normal position.
The vertical camera position has several advantages, including making it much easier to reproduce larger film formats. I use glassless film holders from the darkroom era whenever possible (where there is no glass surface, dust cannot settle).
Here is an example of a 6x12 colour negative digitised with the Z6 and 6048 pixels in width, below which is a 2000-pixel-wide section.