Digital BW, The Print

I have recently had the opportunity to compare these two film
scanners and 
have found the following. I use a Mac 10.2.8, 1gigabyte of RAM and PS
7.0
1. The Dig. Ice function on the 5400 results in substantial image
degradation. I 
was shocked how bad the results were with Dig Ice activated. WITHOUT
the 
Dig. Ice turned on, the Dimage scan for most negatives was comparable
in 
quality to the Nikon WITH Dig. Ice activated. Even here, I give a
slight edge to 
the Nikon in quality, crispness etc. Of course, with the Dig Ice
turned off,  there 
is substantially more time/work involved in cleaning up the scans on
the 
Dimage.  You will be disappointed if you expect  the 5400dpi to
result in a 
better scan than the Nikon 4000dpi. IT DOESN'T. 
2. The Dimage was significantly  slower.  With Dig. Ice turned on and
4x 
multisampling at 5400dpi, a scan takes at least 40 minutes compared
to about 
15-20 for the Nikon. With Dig Ice off , the Dimage can do a 5400 dpi
scan(4x 
multisample) in about 15 minutes.
3. The scanning process with the Dimage is markedly impeded by 
simultaneous work in Photoshop. I don't have an explanation for this
, and 
neither did Minolta's technical help. I have a GIG of RAM so memory
should 
not be an issue. All of the scan times are markedly prolonged with
Photoshop 
being used simutaneously, and in some cases the scanner will simply
abort 
the scan leaving you nothing after an hour scan. The Nikon scanner
does not 
seem to be affected specifically by Photoshop, but I've  found it too
will 
occasionally abort a scan for unknown reasons.
4. The Nikon is known for some softness around the edges due to a
very 
narrow depth of field and failure to hold the negative perfectly flat
. I have 
found this to be true for the Nikon, but could not determine in a
test scans if 
the Dimage was any better. They seemed about the same.  I did find
the film 
carrier/holder for the Dimage relatively easy to use. It made for
easy air 
gunning of the negative once it was loaded into the carrier. 
5. Dimage scans in general are more contrasty . I prefer the Nikon in
this 
regard since I can always adjust the contrast in Photoshop and don't
want to 
lose any detail up front.
6. There was one test negative I used that the Dimage totally failed
to give a 
good scan on. On two attempts the scan was overexposed and blown out
on 
the high end.I thought maybe the scanner had broke, but it worked
fine on 
another negative minutes later. No explanation. The Minolta technical
help 
said simply" if you think the scans are overexposed, send it back to
us so we 
can test it". The Nikon did a great job on this negative.
7. The Minolta is cheaper by a few hundred dollars, so if cost is a
factor it may 
be the only way to go. Do not use the digital ice if you want high
quality scans.
The Nikon wins otherwise.
I hope this helps anyone who might be looking at these two scanners.
Kevin Monroe
kevinmonroephotography.com