Digital BW, The Print

Stretch your budget a bit and get the Minolta 5400. (This assumes you are looking for 35mm only.)

I use mine often and it has yet to disappoint. The scans are the best you can get -- I think you'll find most reviews of the scanner will concur with this opinion.

There is a lot talk about what scanning software to use. At least in the case of the 5400, I think that DiMAGE software that is provided with the scanner (i.e., read that it doesn't cost anything extra) is more than adequate.

Point being you might actually save money with the 5400... The provided software with other scanners may leave much to be desired leading people to buy third party software like Vuescan and Silverfast.

I've read how people extoll the virtues of Vuescan and Silverfast -- I've given each a try but I cannot find how they are superior to the (free) software that comes with the 5400 scanner. Both are counter-inituitive (especially Silverfast) and don't appear to handle multiple (batch) scanning which even at six frames at a time for negs and five frames at a time for slides can be quite useful at times.

The Vuescan and Silverfast fans out there may contradict me on the above but IMHO the bottom line is the DiMAGE software is easy to figure out and use quickly -- the others were not. And it was (is) important to me to be able to use tools (like scanners) quickly and easily -- and not have to labor with this or that learning aid to climb a steep learning curve for overly complicated software.

I don't need my scanner software to do tons of image mantipulation and editing -- I have an overly complicated piece of software called PhotoShop CS for that! :) 

-- 
David Keenan, ausdlk@... on 2/1/2005