Scanner recommendation for 1000s of slides?

Hello All,
I posted here because this is a graphics questions. I recently aquired 3000+ slides from my grandparents who just moved into a retirement community. I have been using an Epson scanner to scan one slide at a time for previous projects, but as you can imagine, that's pretty tedious.
I wonder if anyone here can recommend a scanner that would allow me to scan several slides at a time. Of course, I am looking for something reasonable in price, preferably under $500. Anyone with any first-hand expierence?
Thanks in advance for any and all advice.
Adam

Hi, I have been scanning negatives in 35mm, 120 and 220, and 4x5 and 8x10 format for many years. I currently have a Minolta DIMAGE Pro (discontinued), considered the BEST (Drum scanners not considered) and an EPSON 4990.
I assume you have 35mm negatives (not slides), and you want to keep all of them in storage.
My first recommendation, equipment wise, is to wait for the NEW Epson V-750 M Pro ($799). According to preliminary reviews, it is much better than the already excellent 4990, plus you get optical 6400 DPI, an absolute MUST for 35mm negatives. This will outresolve film grain (in all likelihood you will have 200 and 400 ASA film, which is very grainy).
Be prepared to do A LOT OF COLOR CORRECTION, which is what film labs do before printing, to take bad exposures and other problems people run into when using their cameras.
Another suggestion, DO NOT SCAN ALL OF THEM. It takes a lot of time, and is probably not worth it. Sort them in a light table (a 5000K good one is $60) with a 6x loupe (again another $120 for a good one). Scan for the resolution you will likely print them: if you want 5x7 or 4x6, scan at 1800/2400 dpi. Get a good system for storage and rescan if you need a larger print (do not try to print larger than 8x10, unless you really know what you are doing). Silverfast is recommended.
Be prepared to spend LONG HOURS doing this. A good 2/4 pass scan of a 35mm negative, plus correction and retouching will take no less than 5 minutes, times 3,000 is a lot of hours: More than 10 days of non-stop non-sleep work.
If you have a LOT of money, you can send them to a lab and they will give back a CD for you, for a price.
Good luck

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