A few years ago, a race was brewing in the desktop film-scanner market. Polaroid and Nikon were squaring off like the Yankees and the Dodgers, or the English and the French - well, maybe not that bad.
Then, just as the clash of the Titans was about to commence, the spectators got up and left.
When Nikon released its first CoolScan it was a big hit with photographers. For the first time, there was a scanner that was light, compact and inexpensive.
But the introduction of digital still cameras has taken the shine off the desktop scanner market. Nevertheless, Nikon has stuck to its guns and released the LS-2000, the latest model in the CoolScan line.
The LS-2000 is noticeably larger than its predecessor, the LS-1000. The increased thickness was needed to accommodate a novel cartridge system which allows users to insert different film holders - one for mounted slides, one for APS film, a 50-slide hopper mechanism for batch scanning and slick motorised film holder for negative strips. I used the latter for all tests.
With the LS-2000 fired up, two things immediately are apparent. Firstly, it is quiet. Unlike the LS-1000 which had a noisy mechanism that moved the film to focus the scanner, the 2000 moves the lens to focus. I had to listen closely to hear the slight hum the machine emitted when scanning.