Digital BW, The Print

Tony writes:

> I am also curious to know if I should buy a high
> quality scanner or jump to fully digital.

MF film and a scanner will give you better quality for your money than will
digital, by a very handsome margin.

I looked at the same thing a while ago.  Going digital would have cost
$8000-$10000, and would have provided, at best, 2/3 the quality of 35mm
film.  I calculated that going MF would cost thousands less, and in fact,
even with a Hasselblad kit I still came out ahead--and that includes the
price of a MF scanner.  So I forgot about digital and went with MF, and I
have not regretted it.

> I have lots of MF black & white negs I'd like to
> digitize, so I would like to know more about the
> quality of current MF scanners, what to
> look for/avoid.

I can only speak for the Nikon LS-8000ED, but it's great!

I've already posted links to some B&W scans in a Portra 400BW thread, but if
you missed that, look at these

http://www.mxsmanic.com/stairs.jpg (small version of 6x6 scan at 4000 dpi on
LS-8000ED, 1/64 of original size)
http://www.mxsmanic.com/stairs1.jpg (tiny portion of above picture at
original size of scan)

Examination of Velvia slides with a microscope has revealed that the
LS-8000ED was pulling all the detail available on the slide.