Quality scanner with some speed to scan 50 years worth of family photographs.

My parents have approximately 1000+ plus photos that have been stored loose in a drawer for the last 50 years. My siblings and I would like to scan these photos digitally and make copies for each of us. These photos are in color and black and white and most are 3x5 and 4x6 but may go up to 8x10. Can this same scanner scan slides and negatives as well?

Can you recommend a quality scanner that has reasonable speed for this type of task. Not sure what our budget is but $750 or less would probably be ok.

Thank You!

I use the Epson V700 Photo. It is great for photos up to 8x10 inches. It can do transparencies too, including 35mm size, but for 35mm originals, it would be better to use a dedicated slide scanner (like the Nikon Coolscan, no longer supported by Nikon).

I just setup an Epson V600 which was super cheap this holiday season. The few prints I scanned seemed not too bad and it's much less expensive than the V700.

http://t.epson.com …Cookie=yes&sku=​B11B198011

The recommendation above is a sound choice. Personally I went with the Canon CanoScan 9000f. It did an outstanding job with prints. I was also able to scan 35mm and 120 medium format negatives as well. The negative scans weren't of the professional quality one might expect from a lab with a drum scanner but they were still acceptable good and I made some very nice prints with them.

Is there a service in your area that can do it for you? Like an office or copy store that has access to high end scanning equipment and can scan slides and prints? It might be cheaper on your budget instead of buying. The scanner will have little use afterwards, right? Just throwing that option out there.

Try contacting ScanCafe to see what they can do for you and how much they would charge. They provide an excellent scanning service.

To scan 1000 photos it will take you a very long and tedious time. Time I would personally rather spend doing other things. Take a look at the scancafe service...its worth it in just time saved.