convert 16bit gray-scale image to 8bit

[gulfoslides]

I have a set of 16bit gray-scale images (without a color table) that I would like to convert to 8bit gray-scale images (without a color table). I am looking for an algorithm that will inspect the image and quantize it as "best" as possible. Can convert do this ?

[fmw42]

see http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/quantize/

[gulfoslides]

Actually quantize does not solve my problem. But this does:

convert -depth 8 -normalize