Digital BW, The Print

Which scanner for 35mm?

The top of the line Nikon seems to be favored by people who can afford  
it.

I can't, so I use a Canon F4000US, which works well (with Vuescan,  
especially), but is pretty slow.

I haven't seen any careful tests of the Plustec OpticFilm 7200,  
although they seem to make other interesting and competent non-film  
scanners. (I have their book scanner.)   7200 dpi is tempting,  
although the claimed dMax of 3.3 is suspiciously low.

My guess is that most scanners lose resolution and/or contrast because  
of the lenses they use, so I tend to be a bit suspicious of scanners  
from companies without a decent track record in optics.  The CCD's may  
be fine "off the shelf", but the optics for high resolution probably  
aren't.

Myron