I've gone for a 2-stage process. I started with my Epson 2480 Photo flatbed scanner, but it was slow and fiddly - 2 slides at a time and it took nearly 2 minutes for the whole process. The results were excellent.

I've now bought an Ion scanner (£54.99 from Maplin) which does a rapid scan of 4 slides in about 15 seconds. Transfer of 12 scans to disc takes about 2 minutes, so the total time for 12 slides is about 4 minutes. Quality is adequate on well-exposed slides, but abysmal on seriously under- or over-exposed slides.

I've scanned just over 1000 slides in the past 4 days - 2 sessions of less than an hour a day, I can now identify the very small number which I want to scan at high quality. BTW, a lot of my slides are half-frame and examining them without magnification is difficult. I have another 3000-odd to do!

Phil