![]() ![]() The CoolScan IV ED, also known as the LS-40 ED, was Nikon’s successor to the very successful LS-30. Nikon also produced two Medium Format film scanners, the CoolScan 8000 ED and the CoolScan 9000 ED, both of which are still widely used. Throughout the 90s, Nikon released many 35 mm CoolScan scanners, including the LS-20 (CoolScan II), LS-1000 (CoolScan 1000), LS-30 (CoolScan III), LS-2000 (CoolScan 2000), LS-40 ED (CoolScan IV ED), LS-4000 ED (CoolScan 4000 ED), LS-50 ED (CoolScan V ED) and LS-5000 ED (CoolScan 5000 ED), each of which improved on the prior generation’s scan resolutions and image quality. ![]() These could also be used by professional and amateur photographers to digitize their film and slide collections now that storage of large scanned images was possible and editing facilities were greatly improved. By the 90s, there was no longer a need to have dedicated equipment to transmit photographs, and you could rely on consumer PCs instead to scan and send photos. The legacy of the NT-1000 (and the improved NT-2000 and NT-3000) helped Nikon develop the Coolscan line of scanners for PC and Mac. Now they could use a 35mm scanner and send only the negative, saving time and money. Previously, someone would need to set up a dark room, operate the enlarger to print the photo, and operate the difficult to use machinery to transmitted the low-quality printed photo back to their newsroom. One of the advantages to this new approach was that a Japanese newspaper no longer needed to send both a photographer and a transmitter operator. This development revolutionized the news industry. Nikon went on to partner with Kyodo News to create a device that could scan 35mm film and transmit it via the phone network back home to Japan. In 1981, Sony unveiled its MAVICA digital camera with a CCD sensor capable of capturing 570x490 pixels, but this also wasn’t sufficient for Japanese newspapers of the day. There were products to transmit printed photographs, but their quality was limited. Text could be transmitted by fax machine or teletype, but color photographs were difficult to transmit. The problem it was trying to solve was, in an age before digital cameras, how can News organizations transmit photographs taken in far-flung locales back to their newsrooms. Prior to the development of dedicated consumer film scanners, Nikon produced a product called the NT-1000. Many of those scanners are still in use today because of their high build quality, low number of degradable parts, and the discovery by many customers that they still will work with 3rd party software today. They sold both flatbed and film/slide scanners but their Coolscan film and slide scanners were where they really stood out from the pack. Between 19, Nikon released some of the best consumer scanners on the market. ![]()
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