It's about time I updated my journal. I've been going slow recently but there's a few things for me to write about.

I've been shooting lots with with my Pentacon Six. Last week I sent off three rolls of 220 film to be developed, along with a roll of 35 mm Velvia. They haven't come back yet, which is very annoying.

I went to Paola's 30th birthday party last weekend. She's the older sister of Tania, my brother Glenn's wife. It was a nice little get-together and thankfully the weather was quite good for this time of year. At Glenn's suggestion, they hired a jumping castle for the backyard. He had one at his 21st birthday and it was popular then as well. Andrew and Alissa made a quick visit with the kids over the weekend because they were invited to the party too. Wow, my little niece Sarah (almost 3 years old now) just loved the jumping castle. The adults would come and go in waves, tiring and moving off. There were other kids that jumped in bursts. But Sarah was on it almost the whole time, except for food, drink, and toilet breaks. From 12:30 to 5:30, she must have jumped for a good 3-4 hours. Then she watched with much concern and curiosity as it was deflated, rolled up, and loaded onto a trailer. Thankfully there were no tears.

I went through a roll of Fujifilm Pro 160S during the day and later started a roll of 800Z in the evening, but did not finish that until a few days ago. These weren't amongst the rolls I sent off. They'll have to go some other time, when I have another one or two to send off with them.

I got a flocking kit for my Pentacon Six the other day. I spent last night cutting up the self-adhesive pieces and sticking them inside my camera. Some were tricky, but it went pretty well. There's some gaps though, so I might try filling them in with some of the left-over material. The right-hand side of the inside is a concern - it's were the mirror mechanism and other bits are located. Only some of the flocking material could be applied there because of the closeness of the moving mirror. There's also two flat screw heads and the inside of the PC (flash) socket that are kinda shiny. So I might try to get some flat black paint to cover them up. Until then I should avoid shooting with bright light to the left.

I've also ordered a pair of extension rings for my P6. These will allow me to do macro work, as well as reduce the annoyingly far ~1 m minimum focusing distance of the Biometar 80 mm lens. Little kids like to get close

Now what to get next for my Pentacon? I'm afraid I've just about exhausted all of the really cheap items. Three items on my wishlist - the gear to develop my own 120/220 film, a wide-angle lens, and a Kiev-60 metered prism with adaptor.

Oh yeah, and thanks for the 5000 pageviews!