Reflecta RPS 10M vs Nikon Coolscan 5000ED
A long time ago, when I started to shoot films, I read many articles about scanners and how to scan. As I have always wanted to have my own lab to be independent and to be able to develop my films whenever I want, I have decided that the first step will be to buy my own scanner in the best possible quality within my budget.
Of course, I read the famous German site we all know and found out that Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED is the king of 35mm film scanning, but it was pricey and no longer in production… I left this desire and focused on something I could afford at that time. That was this strangely designed machine — Reflecta RPS 10M, which looks like the smaller sister of Fiat Multipla, but reviews on it were very good. There were just some complaints about banding on wrong exposed pictures (just a little with my unit) but on the other site, the best-measured resolution in 35mm scanner class, the possibility of batch scanning, high Dmax…
So, I bought it. It costed around 650€. It is a bit funny that now after years still in production the cost has been raised up to around 950€ (2021). I didn’t even know at that time that I was actually making a good investment :) I was satisfied with the scanner results. And the more I learned about scanning and software (I sent my greetings to Vuescan and Negative lab pro) the more I was happy and satisfied. There was a time I couldn’t imagine that I would move to another — better scanner. But… there was always one BUT. Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED should be better.
Then, bit by bit, I have set up all my home C41 lab and bought other needed equipment, but that is a different story.
Years flew by and I don’t even know why I started listing eBay for CS5000 from time to time. I was probably just a bit curious, but you know how it works, it gets me… and one day I found an eBay profile selling refurbished Coolscans with a one-year warranty (google -> Frank A. Phillips) and the price wasn’t that high as of many others here in Europe. After a few hours of hesitation, I took a deep breath and pushed the “buy it now” button, hoping my girlfriend would not kill me when she got to know about this (now I must say she was very ok (and I am not writing this just because she is sitting here next to me)).
Since it was an order from the US to the EU in the Covid times, it took three and half months to get this machine in my hands. Since then I am a happy owner of an almost perfect condition unit of Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED. Cool(scan)!
From the first moment I had it, I knew what I absolutely needed to do. It was like that, I really thought my RPS 10M is a great scanner but I wasn’t ever able to find a direct comparison to know if CS5000ED is worth the extra money and if it is just that better. So, my friends, here I present some comparisons.
As I mentioned before, my method of scanning uses VueScan raws, which are then converted with Negative Lab Pro. I have to note here that it is very important to keep the manufacturer's workflow, to get the best possible results with NLP. If you are interested, just read this page.
Let’s compare them
For a comparison I used the cheapest but surprisingly not that bad Fujifilm C200 I shot recently. A camera that I used is a Nikon F6 with the ability to catch EXIF data.
First, I need to say that RPS 10M is a scanner, which VueScan lets you use 5000dpi or even crazy 10 000dpi, but we all know that it is bullshit right? That’s just marketing numbers and theoretical values. Yes, but… 5000dpi actually produces 4300dpi real resolution according to the mentioned German site. So, for this comparison, I set RPS10M to 5000dpi. You can’t set Nikon Coolscan 5000ED to more than 4000dpi in any way, so let’s have the best of both.
(click on the image to view full-size resolution)
Because of higher dpi, Reflecta scans are of course “bigger”. For comparison, I upscaled the Nikon’s ones to match them. Will Reflecta’s more dpi bring more details of scenery? Let’s see.
But first — Colors.
At first sight, you can see the difference in colors. With absolutely the same workflow Nikons are more vivid and rich. I do not think Reflectas are bad, I personally prefer “more realistic” less saturated photos, but you know, from a long stick you can easily make a shorter one, but the opposite way is not that easy.
(Fujicolor C200, Nikon F6, Tamron 24–70 G1, f9 1/320 24mm)
Also, look at the clouds. In this particular case Nikon scan, without other than just basic workflow, produces a more correct white balance in this picture in my opinion. It is not an iron rule and, in the picture below you can see that it can also be the other way around.
Details
…in a 100 % crop of this photo:
(Fujicolor C200, Nikon F6, Tamron 24–70 G1, f11 1/50 55mm)
You can see that Reflecta’s real measured resolution — 4300dpi vs Nikon’s — 3900dpi (source) is in practice not or almost not visible. In some cases, it looks like Coolscan is even better.
What I like more about Reflecta’s picture is the grain. It seems to be softer and less color noisy. Again, those are just basic workflow settings and with a bit of playing with sharpening and noise reduction, you can make them both look better and closer to each other.
Another example:
(Fujicolor C200, Nikon F6, Nikkor 50mm f1.8G, f5.0 1/60 50mm, fill flash -1EV Nikon SB800)
Crop 100 % :
For an even better comparison I made this automated gif picture with 200% crop:
For Nikon scan, this is actually more than 200 %. Remember, in the beginning, I made upscale to match Reflecta higher resolution. And I think we can see that Nikon is now slightly losing here. Reflecta is the winner for me because of less color noise and more softly grain.
Btw that is my girlfriend and do you see how happy she is now that we have these two fantastic scanners. Isn’t she nice?
One more example here:
(Fujicolor C200, Nikon F6, Tamron 24–70 G1, f3.5 1/1250 34mm)
…and all others 200 % automated crops:
Other thoughts…
There are some other differences. Reflecta is able to make a batch scan of all your film strips from the factory. To do this with Coolscan you need to have a very expensive film adapter SA-30 or you need to “do it yourself” conversion of your SA-21 film adapter which normally supports only 6 frames strips. It is not that hard, to do that, read this. Mine was done in 5 min with a thin piece of wire. Later, 15min with a soldering method.
Once you have done that Coolscan is able to do all 36 or more frames.
AND it will do it much quicker than Reflecta! This is actually one of the best benefits you can have from Nikon.
Nikon can do all the film in half an hour (locked exposition) and the same took Reflecta about two hours and something.
Nikon has no problems with banding with incorrectly exposed shots.
From my observation, I would say that Drange is just the same.
Nikon feels much more solid and reliable. Reflecta is not only strangely designed, but also feels like a China plastic toy in comparison with heavy massive metal Coolscan. Hard to say if this will project into some failures in the future, but at the moment I am using RPS 10M for 8 years, I scanned circa 5 hundred films and everything works as new without servicing except some inner cleaning.
From my observation and experiences, I also can say now that Nikon is a bit better in infrared dust and scratches detecting.
Conclusion
Would I recommend you to buy an expensive second-hand Nikon rather than a brand new Reflecta? Hard to say. Probably you do not need to… unless you are a really crazy hobbyist like me or a small commercial lab where speed is important. Nikon definitely looks like a better-constructed machine, but it is out of production for a long time and all units you can buy today are more or less aged. Reflecta is brand new with a warranty.
There are some small benefits from Nikon Coolscan and at the end of the day, you need to decide if it is worth almost double the price.
My subjective feeling in a table:
Here is my Flickr with all my shots.