Digital BW, The Print

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If everybody switched to 
digital image-capture tomorrow morning, there would *still* be a 
need, and a market, for film scanners in several formats.

Having said that, the market for medium-format film scanners 
has always lagged well behind 35mm.  It was only several years 
back that I heard MF shooters bemoan the fact that there was 
*nothing* on the market below five figures for scanning MF film, 
while there were plenty (well, not quite *plenty*) of 35mm 
scanners starting at a little over a grand.  When Polaroid, Nikon, 
Minolta et al finally decided there was *just* enough of a market 
to justify introducing MF film scanners, there were gripes about 
the prices being asked for them (never mind that they were 
cheap compared with, say, an 800-series Imacon, never mind a 
Howtek or Tango). Since the Nikon 8000  has taken a sizable dip 
in price, if I was a big MF shooter, I'd be on my way to the store 
right now, never mind worries about something "new and 
improved" possibly coming down the pike (just be glad these 
things don't change nearly as quickly as digital cameras do!).

Of course, being a lowly 35mm-only shooter, I'll just have to 
settle for buying a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400 this week. :-)

- Barrett

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "J 
Michael Sullivan" <michael@h...> wrote:
> It is unfortunate that few manufacturers (if any) are going to 
>release any new medium-format scanners in the foreseeable 
>future (Imacon is an exception). 

>Projected sales for high-end digital cameras will preclude a 
>decent ROI on launching such a new product. Perhaps Nikon 
>will come out with an improved 8000 though. It  would nice of 
>them to enable current users to upgrade (again unlikely). More 
>likely is better/cheaper flatbeds (a la Epson 3200) from the 
>likes of Epson and others.
> 
> mjs