Digital BW, The Print

At 3:39 PM -0500 3/17/05, <aderca@...> wrote:
>I will be upgrading my film scanner soon

Me too, unless Minolta keeps us waiting for version three of the 540o 
(5400-III?).


>and have more or less
>settled on the two models above.

Assuming you meant the Minolta 5400-II, so have I except that I 
believe I thought the Nikon 5000 (misleading name) is a better match 
for the Minolta 5400-II than the Nikon V is. The bigger question, of 
course, is how the Minolta "5400-III" will compare, and whether to 
wait for it to be reviewed or take the lower price on the 5400-II.


>  4000 dpi is plentiful for what I need

Not for me, so in my case, that's a sizeable plus for the 5400 - if 
the samples-per-inch differences imply higher resolution.


>but the 4.8 dynamic range (as purported by Konica-Minolta) is what
>caught my attention. Can this claim be substantiated ?

My impression is that the manufacturers (not just K-M) don't even try 
even to explain, much less substantiate, their dynamic-range claims.


>Anybody have an idea how the two machines compare in terms of speed?

I don't. I assume that Nikon's 9000 would, because of its FireWire 
connection, be appreciably faster than the others, but I haven't been 
able to persuade myself that's worth the additional expense to me. 
And if the 5400's speed increased in going from II to III, maybe it 
will again?


>I will be using Vuescan, am not setting much hope on the prepackaged
>software, all the scanners that I've used so far were lacking in that respect.
>Silverfast is nice but a bit expensive in the Ai version, at least for what I
>can afford.

It was bundled with my other scanners, but I'm not sure I'll upgrade 
it; I think I'll go with VueScan too.


>Any comments would be greatly appreciated

I've heard that Mac users have a harder time working with the Nikons 
and with getting Nikon's attention, and that's a big minus for me.

I found the best price, $544.21 ($553.58 w/shipping to Northern 
California) for the Minolta 5400-II at TechOnWeb.com, which I've 
never heard of and on which I'd like some reports.


>Regards
>
>Andrei
--
Sam