Digital BW, The Print

This is a cross-Post from the PiezoBW forum.

Has anyone seen results from the Nikon 8000? I have read 
reviews from several sources and the results are mixed and 
conflicting.

October 2001 PEI Magazine did a review comparison of the 8000 
against the Polaroid 4000dpi model. They made two comments 
that concern me:

1. There are noticeable signal-to-noise levels.

2. Images scanned at 2000dpi were sharper and had less noise 
than those scanned at 4000dpi. The grain structure in film will 
show at 3500dpi or higher.

I thought that the best scan you would get in terms of sharpness 
is to have sharp grain structure. I am going on the fact that when 
you print a neg in the darkroom, you use a grain magnifier and 
would focus to get the grain as sharp as possible. Is there 
something else happening with digital that you don't want sharp 
grain structure in a scan? I'm assuming that from a properly 
sized file (300 dpi or higher at print size), the grain structure 
would not show in a print from a digital file any more than it 
would show in a print directly from the neg. (I'm referring to RA-4 
digital prints as well as inkjet prints.)

The main reason I ordered an 8000 (other than reported image 
quality) is to be able to obtain large enough files to generate wall 
portraits. If my best results are going to be at 2000 dpi, my max 
size from a 2x2 neg will be 16x16 at 250dpi. I was hoping to get 
30x30 at 300dpi.

Anyone with experience with these issues please comment 
especially if there's error in my assumptions.

regards,

H. Gregory Porter
The Porter Gallery