Tis the season!

For years, this next set of posts are always a favorite of mine, as it gathers ideas for you to gift to the photo/video fan in your world, and of course. maybe just purchase something to make your life easier! Plus, want to give you enough time to take advantage of the coming sales!

Come back daily for fresh categories of selected products!

A couple of things to note:

*most everything in the posts have been tested and worked with, so the reccos come from a real place.

*Cameras systems are generally not included, as it it such a personal , and expensive proposition that you should research via multiple sources, with a major one, putting a camera in your hands to make sure it it what you want to commit to.

*If someone asked me what to recco: Fuji, Nikon, Sony, or Canon my answer is – YES!

OK, to start here is a scanner that has been posted about before, and is a great product for families and extended families. I wanted to give you time to read about, buy one, scan your family photos, send it off to another family member, have them scan, and so on, creating a huge shared family history through photos.It has gone from the 640w to the 680w sinceI first saw it.

Here is a link to the latest version. 

I love to scan old photos.
Seriously, being able to scan negatives and slide from my archives is one of my favorite evening pastimes. Set it up, scan and store. It almost becomes a treasure hunt, especially with the negatives.
One thing I was not scanning much were all of the 4×6 photos in my storage boxes. You know, we all have them. The personal records of our lives.
The neg sleeves from the commercial labs, like Fromex, had a short cut to the strips, and was, honestly a bit of a pain to deal with.
There are services where you pack all of your precious family photos into a box, and send them overseas to be scanned. Scared the heck out of me, so never did it.
The I saw a demo of the Epson FastFoto 640 

When I first saw the Epson FastFoto last year, I had a feeling that this was a breakthrough product. Being able to bulk scan my family snaps, with speed, AND scan front and back for the older ones (people used to put notes on the back) was a win. And sitting on a small bit of a desktop? Worked for me!
Until I get to try these things out myself, I can’t truly comment.
After having one to test for a bit. I’m convinced.

Pure winner.
There is one downside that I’ll broach later.

OK, first of all, you stack the photos, and pick your resolution,

and then decide where they should go after you scan. Add the image info for that batch. After you scan one batch, you can continue to add more batches with the same info/set-up if you like. These images can all be saved to the same folder, or destination. I have different folders for birthdays, holidays, etc.,

They can be sent into a named folder, or even on-line.

Then, hit a button on the front of the unit, and your snaps get scanned, in a bulk rate fashion. and no negatives left the sleeves!
Digitized, tagged, and ready to share.
Sweet!
You can also use it for documents, and make searchable PDF’s.

I did it with 4×6 prints, 5×7, and even long panoramics. On the pano’s, once I brought them into lightroom, I just did a mass rotation to get them in the proper orientation. For odd size photos, they include a folder to keep them held correctly to scan. Can you throw a random stack of odd sized prints in at one time? Not advised.
The color was great, it can do auto enhancement, saving an original so you can tweak, the resolution is superb, and the ease of operation was as advertised.

I’ll call it portable, as it’s small enough, although not battery powered. (11.8 x 8.7 x 8.1 in)
Well built, great software included, and very easy to use.
So what’s the downside?
The price.
When i first saw the unit at a press event, I thought perhaps it was a suggested price. Nope.
N0w only $499!
BUT……
It serves a huge purpose, and it does exactly what it said it would, and does a great job of it.
I suggest this:
Share it with your family. Yep, that’s right. Buy one, and share the cost with family members. Have each family get the scanner for a bit, and scan in their collection of family images. If you amortize the cost with your family members, you can create a massive digital history of your family photos, to share online or in hard files.
The family that scans together, stays together.
As far as shipping it to out-of-town relatives, the box I got the review unit sent in, was the box it came in. No outer packaging, so that’ll work.
The software is very easy to download and use.
When my mom turned 80 we all shared photos of her from across the familial network, and created a book of her life. Wish I had this then.
With companies like ancestry.com popping up to detail your families birth lineage, here is a perfect tool to document your families visual history.
Win #TBT every week!

So come back daily here, on X, and FB for the latest Gift Guide with fresh categories!