The money was burning a hole in my pocket. I probably should have gotten some tires for the truck, but they look good for a few thousand more miles, so I dropped by to see Ken at "Camera Exposure," the mostly used equipment shop that's been up on Adams Avenue forever. Well, for the 20 years I've been shooting anyway. Mostly I needed a better cable release for the little Horseman view camera I've been wanting to go exercise, but as usual I started drooling over all the cool film stuff that's going dirt cheap now that digital has attracted the less-than-hard-corps.

Anyway, Ken pulled out a box of consignment Pentax 6x7 bodies and I looked through them and found a nice one. He quoted me too much, so I countered with a lower bid. He had to call the guy that owned it and we couldn't deal. So Ken pulled out a body that the store owned and offered it for a lot less. It doesn't have the mirror lock up feature, but I shoot off-hand and never use it anyway. It was clean, though it needed new seals. He found where someone had engraved a SSN on the bottom and lowered the price even more and I agreed. Left it with them for an hour and the seals are nice and fresh now.

So...with the purchase of a backup body in medium format, it looks like I've decided to stick with film for quite awhile longer.

This is Paige again, photographed with a Pentax 645, a camera I've effectively given to a friend now that I'm using the larger 6x7 format. That 645 had a lot going for it, but it depended too much on buttons and menus and I've always preferred dials and wheels. And now that I'm trying to do more detail and less grain, the 645 just wasn't giving me enough of what I wanted.