Select page here Page 1 - What's in the box Page 2 - The scanner parts Page 3 - Scanning Page 4 - First scans Page 5 - More scans Page 6 - Negative scanning - UPDATED Page 7 - Minolta v Epson Page 8 - Specifications Page 9 - Conclusion

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 2

Dedicated film scanners are becoming harder to find In this predominantly digital age, especially with so many flatbed scanners now offering similar resolution figures. Many will argue that you can't beat a good quality dedicated film scanner and I wouldn't disagree with that fact either. Minolta are a key player in the film scanner area, their scanners provide excellent value for money and they do a great job of converting analogue film to digital files. For a photographer who has been shooting film and has now moved over to digital, this scanner may offer the last link between film and digital capture. In this review I will make a point of testing how well the Konica Minolta 5400 II scanner performs against a flatbed scanner with a TPU.

What's in the box?

Konica Minolta DiMAGE 5400 II scanner Power supply USB 2.0 cable (backwards compatible) Strip film holder (1 strip of six 35mm) Mounted slides holder (four frames) Photoshop Elements 2.0 (Win/Mac) Drivers CD Reset tool User Manual

The scanner is much longer than I had expected (14 inches from front to rear), but it seems to be well built. My initial thoughts are that the manufacturers should have used a higher quality case, the case feels a bit too "plastic", a steel case would have been preferred especially as the scanner costs £599 - my washing machine only cost £350 and that is an all steel construction (but I admit it produces lousy scans). The film holders seem to be well built, I will put them trough some rigorous tests later.

Driver Installation

As with so many hardware installations, you have to install the drivers and other software before connecting to the computer. The installation process took about 1 minute using Windows XP, on completion you are prompted to Restart the computer.

Splash screen	Select the components you want to install

I have selected the default setting to install all five components; Twain Data Source, DiMage 5400 Utility, Easy Scan Utility, DiMage Scan Jobs and DiMage scan launcher. The 5400 includes drivers for

Windows 98, 98 Second edition, 2000 Professional, Me, XP Home and Professional

Mac OS 9.2.2, OSX 10.1.3 - 10.1.5 - 10.2.1 - 10.2.8 - 10.3 - 10.3.8 (so many numbers)

Recommended system requirements:

128mb of RAM - 256mb
600mb hard disk space
800x600 display - 1024x768 recommended
USB 2.0 interface (1.1 is also supported)

I would assume that the above specifications are the minimum requirements.