Leafscan 45 vs. Nikon 9000 for B&W medium format scans

I have a Nikon 9000 and am very pleased overall with it. I have heard

numerous times though that for B&W work the leafscan's diffuser and scanning

does an excellent job for dmax, smoothness of tonality and lack of grain

issues (which can be problematic for the 9000). I have someone locally

selling an entire Leafscan 45, Mac G3 and monitor package for a pretty

attractive price. Most threads on the Leafscan here are pretty old. Anyone

compared directly the results of B&W scans from the Leafscan 45 vs. the Nikon

9000? Since I do about 95% B&W work I'm thinking I might not only be satisfied

with the Leafscan for my MF B&W scans but maybe even more than what the 9000

can give? Any experiences or thoughts on this? Thanks....

Sorry, I cannot comment on the Leafscan but do own the Nikon 9000. My standard for comparison has been my best darkroom prints. The Nikon 9000, Photoshop CS3, and my Epson 3800 easily surpass my best darkroom efforts and I have been working in the darkroom with first class gear for over 40 years. It is hard to believe that anything would beat the Nikon for medium format scanning unless you are printing well over 16x20 and use a drum scanner.

Good luck.

Eric

If anyone would be able to provide these comparisons it should be you, having access to

both scanners now. Don't buy that Leafscan setup without thorough testing what you want to

use it for anyway. And please post the results here for us! I'm sure several would be very

interested to see them.

I ran a Leaf for years, it will most likely blow the doors off the Nikon (the lens alone probably

cost more than the entire Nikon scanner). But its VERY SLOW. As said, this is a very old unit

with old software, whatever you do, don't go with the non SCSI version (GPIB)! But when its

done scanning, the quality is pretty amazing. You might find a used drum scanner as well

(same caveats above).