Copying family photos to CD Copy pictures, slides, documents and even movies to CD to preserve them. Once you have them on disk, you can make backup copies, you can share them with family and friends and you edit the pictures to make them look better.
Full-timing in an RV means you do not have the space to carry all of your treasures including hundreds or thousands of family pictures, slides and movies. Today there is an easy solution to that problem. Digitize your pictures. A stack of CD's is easier to store than boxes and boxes of pictures.
I decided it was time to copy all of my family pictures to disks. I went to the local computer megastore and bought an Epson 3200 desktop scanner. It has all kinds of wonderful features. I can scan pictures, documents, photographic slides and negatives and much more. It was a fairly expensive scanner, but it does a wonderful job. It's been over a year since I bought my scanner and it has been upgraded even more for about the same price.
The big problem with my scanner is that it is very slow. First it warms up, then it slowly scans the length of the glass "table". Once it is done scanning, I need to tell it I'm done, then it asks me if I want to continue scanning more things or FINISH. If I click finish it shows me small pictures of what has been scanned and asks me if I want to SAVE them. Then it takes more time to save them to the file I selected.
I'm 62 years old, married with two children and I have a LOT of pictures from my lifetime, from my wife before we were married and all of our parents pictures. There are ???? thousands? Well, there certainly are a lot. This process using a scanner is very slow.
OK, BRIGHT IDEA!! Why not take pictures of these same things using my digital camera. CLICK, the job is done, the picture is saved and I move right on to the next "scan" or picture.
I have a 5 megapixel Sony camera. It takes very nice close-ups of photographs, pictures and even documents. I bought an adapter on Ebay that is used to copy slides. It's just a dark metal barrel with a slide holder on the end and an opaque piece of plastic to diffuse light. I have copied a couple hundred pictures now and it is very easy. Digital cameras in RV's are great for storing your family pictures on a CD.
My adapter wasn't meant to be used by my camera --- it doesn't fit. I have to hold the adapter with the slide in it up to the camera lens Yes, the adapter touches the lens, well it touches the UV filter adapter I have screw onto the lens This protects the actual camera lens
I simply put a slide in the adapter, hold the adapter up to the camera and hold both up close to a florescent light bulb. I snap the picture and move to the next slide. I have the camera set to using FLORESCENT LIGHT, so the picture color comes out normal. Maybe if I go to a photo shop, I can buy a bulb that will give better lighting and truer color.
A small tripod and a holder for paper photographs makes taking pictures of them easy also. It is very easy to take a picture of a picture with a modern high resolution digital camera. Try it, you may also be copying all your pictures so you can store your digital pictures on a CD disk.
One good thing about the internet is that you can find just about any product online. Everything I have talked about is available. A great price on a Sony camera. My Sony is a 5 megapixel camera. Sony now has an 8 megapixel camera. There are scanners like the one pictured above. Do you need a tripod or a few packs of CD's? Do a search and you will find it online.
