Thanks for your reply.

I currently use a Polaroid Sprintscan 4000, the original which I think has a DMAX of 3.4 or 3.6, officially.

With the development of digital cameras I feel that my recent purchase of the EOS 3 will be my last film camera. Eg.. see http://www.luminous-landscape.com/d60-first.htm

I have a large collection of images that I have been slowly scanning. I have been doing this at 42/48bit? at 4000dpi. I then create a master file with Genuine Fractals. From this I print up to A3+ down to small JPEG's via Photoshop on the Epson 1270. (I will be buying the new 2100P sometime in the next 12 months and think that it will be the standard for some time to come.)

I am in two minds as to keep or upgrade to the higher DMAX. I am thinking that at 4.2 I can get optimum detail.

I suspect that with the advance of digital we won't see too much more development in the area of 35mm film scanners.

If this is so, then should I continue archiving with my polaroid, which has an anoying feature of scanning the image marginally out of alignment, resulting in every image haveing to be slightly cropped, seen it on another polaroid too. The scans, I have to admit I have been happy with.

This leads me to the question, Canon, with slower speed but great sharpness and colour accuracy and less agressive FARE and significantly lower cost or Nikon, faster, more agressive ICE and rumoured softness in the scans on the outer lower edges? I could also upgrade to the newer Polaroid, I guess.

I want to make the best scan of my best images that I can, within reason and see no need with current technology to go to the more expensive scanner, eg drum

I was using Silverfast software but have gone back to Vuescan which allows some colour correction work in 48 bit mode where as the Silvefast does it only in 24 bit. This causes problems if you want to do some more in Photoshop.

I also was very interested in your comments about Kodak 100VS compared to Provia. In that you said the curve was identical, I guess implying almost equal performance in sharpness. I was not sure. I have been noticing on my scans of Provia little black dots which Luminous Landscape identified as being in the actual emulsion. A contributor said he had done some preliminary work with a Kodak equivelant and noticed no black dots but he was unsure as to which is the sharper emulsion, a key factor if doing A3+ prints.

Any hints on where to go on this subject. I have read many statements that Provia is sharper but wonder if it is true or a case of "sheep following the masses". I have to admit a friend did a test of a number of emulsions, Fuji and Kodak pro and amatuer emulsions and he asked me to pick the one I liked the most and it turned out to be a Kodak emulsion. I have stuck with Provia but, because of the sharpness issue.

If you are interested, you can have a look at my work on http://www.wises.com.au