[Leica] Scanners and B&W - OT?

["Roger L. Bunting" <rlbunting@ameritech.net>]

This weekend one of the large stores in Chicago, Helix on Racine had a
photo expo. Saw for the first time lots of Leica stuff under one roof.
Hexar was there but there was only a little interest. A little more at
the Leica booth, but really for the P&S stuff. Would liked to have
walked away with the 24mm Elmarit ASPH but alas budget had to settle for
a lens hood.

I've been following scanning threads and topics by this group and a
completely unscientific recollection says that there is a lot of B&W
Nikon CoolScan 2000 users here. At the expo the Helix reps
(Nikon/Minolta reps were on break while I was there), were pushing the
Minolta Dimage San Multi Scanner over the CoolScan 2000. Reason given
was the better performance of the Minolta for B&W. The claim was
extended B&W tonal range. The prints they were showing from the Minolta
were impressive but still lacked punch in the 'brilliant' portion of the
highlights.

Any comments from users in this list? I was leaning toward the Nikon but
have only seen it's color performance. My intersts are B&W. Been
attending local camera clubs for info, but they are all slide focused
groups.

Thanks for your help.

Regards,
Roger