A lot of people have asked this question about scanning old 35mm slides and it seems that the Epson 4490 has been recommended. I have Vista and it appears this scanner is not compatible with my operating system. The Nikon Coolscan-V ED was also recommended to me and it is Vista compatible, is this a better scanner? Obviously I want good quality, ease of use, and an affordable scanner. Do you have any advice for me?

Answer: Because operating systems are constantly changing, I am a fan of this 35mm slide scanner that can work independent from a computer. It can store your images directly to a memory card and then you can just transfer them to any computer, Mac, PC, XP, Vista, 7, and whatever comes out next.

I Have close to 900 35mm slides that need to be scanned and converted to a digital format for my Mac I would prefer .jpg’s but any digital format will work . How can I go about accomplishing this?
I currently have a Brother MFC420 / flat bed scanner but I am not sure it is the right tool for the job.

A: Scanning slides with a flatbed scanner is not an efficient way to convert them to digitals. There are 35mm slide scanners available that will actually backlight the slide before capturing the image. This way each slide is converted and the images will have better lighting.  If you have 900 slides to convert it is going to take you a very long time to get through all of them. Alternatively you might consider using a service.  If however you want to have the ability to scan slides as needed, a home model is a perfect solution.