Digital BW, The Print

> >Actually, though, I think Nikon is just blowing smoke to hide
something that
> >they are working on right now.  I hope I'm right, for their
sake and mine.

Nikon as a whole is having a hard time. Their division for wave
steppers and scanners used in the chip industry has lost a lot of
the market to ASML. A desperate legal battle doesn't help there.
Nikon service has become far worse than it was in the past. Some
flaws in the scanner and scan software of the 8000 and 4000 have
not been addressed in more than a year. And filmscanners are not
a product for the future but digital cameras are. Nikon's digital
cameras over the entire range are no competition to Canon's and
in the lower range not even to Sony's models.
To get it on topic, yes in B&W there will be an advantage to use
B&W film for the time being, as soon as sensors get more pixels
and or become more sophisticated (Foveon) then there's no
advantage anymore. There's an advantage in digital that you can
select the sensibility per frame that compensates part of the
latitude of B&W film. Not to mention that a double take in
digital is far less hassle in the process than in analogue. Yes,
start on a tripod.

Ernst