A number of international education offices are finding that providing passport and visa identification photo services for their students is not only convenient for the students, but it helps the office assure that this task has been done in a timely manner.
Wendy Lippert, director of the EpiCenter and associate director of International Programs at Messiah College, recently asked education abroad advisers around the USA on the SECUSS-L list what camera they would recommend and she's generously allowed me to share the top choice here.
The camera that clearly received the most recommendations was the Sony UPX-C200 Digital Printing (Passport Photo) System.
So what did people say about the camera?
Our office has used the SONY UPX-C200 model since 2004 and have very?good success with it -no complaints from the [United States] State Department about the quality of?the photos or anything like that. There is just no way you can mess up the?photos – it is a failure proof system.?
Others said:
We love the Bluetooth feature, because it allows for easy printing without?a?cord. [The system] has been a great addition to our office and our study abroad?students have really taken advantage of this new service we offer. We don't have any complaints about the system, and have not had any issues?arise with Passport Services.
and
We like the system's…ease?of changing the printer cartridge.
Are there any drawbacks?
The only thing I do not like is that it?is not really easy to print non-US passport size photos. Even though?the system has many different sizes, none of those sizes seem to exactly?match up with the sizes our customers request for non-US visas.?
And one more issue to know about when operating the camera:
Initially, we had some problems with the USA Passport Services accepting a?few of our photos because they were too dark. This, however, had a lot?to do with our lack of natural lighting in our office. We have fixed?the problem, however, by changing a few of the camera settings. Now, we?rarely if ever have any photos rejected.?
There seems to be a wide variety of prices for the system from vendors who carry the system — sometimes differences of hundreds of dollars. So shop carefully and wisely!
Do you have experience with the Sony UPX-200 or is there another passport/visa photo camera that you recommend?
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{ 2 comments }
I was always really skeptical of this type of product for photos, but I gave this a shot and I found it really impressive.
You can create valid passport photos with <a href="http://idphoto4you.com/" target="_blank">http://idphoto4you.com</a> website.
It uses <b>face detection</b> to set size and position of head.
It is free.
Built-in standards for 63 countries.
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