No, I haven’t had any children.

The new fullness comes from a couple new pieces of gear for the studio.

The first is something I’ve been wanting for a while:  A fainting couch.  It’s not the best style (or color), but for the price, I just couldn’t pass it up.  $120 (delivered!) from the Antiques Mall of Portage.   They have another, better one in the window display, but it’s a little out of my price range right now.   If it’s still there when I have the spare cash, I’ll definitely head back.

I did my best to keep my eyes averted as I walked through the store.  When it comes to antiques, I’m like a kid in a candy store.

The 2nd new addition to the studio is a Pentax K-x Digital SLR.  I’ve been looking at a new camera for a while, and the K2000 I was planning on buying has been discontinued.  The K-x is the replacement.  I haven’t had a chance to give it a full shake-down, but so far, I’m finding some good things and some not-so-good things.   It’s lighter and feels good in my hand, the rear display gives a large display of the settings (it’s going to take a while to break myself of the habit of looking at the top of the camera for those), and it included 2 lenses.  I’m sure once I get used to the slight variations in the controls, I’ll like it quite a bit.

On the down side, Pentax changed their .PEF “raw” format so that my processing software can’t read the files.  I can use the .DNG format (another “raw” format) and do some conversions to get where I need to be, but I lose some functionality and add several steps.  I run a Linux system, so I can’t use the processing software that came with the camera–and even if I could, it’s severely limited compared to what I normally use.  Hopefully the DCRaw converter application will be upgraded soon and Linux will once again be able to read the images properly.

Life is all about change.  Sometimes that change is easy, sometimes it takes a little bit of patience and work.