I picked up a couple of new bits and pieces for my Pentax K200D. The first thing (which was actually a pair of things) was a light scoop. It's a cool little device (pretty simple really) that attaches to your flash mount and uses a mirror to bounce the light from your pop up flash, rather than directly flashing. There were some pretty good reviews of it on flickr (over other options) so I decided to get a pair shipped over. On the whole it's worked pretty well and definately improves over the shots that you get (inside) with your normal flash. I have found it varies with where you are in the room (especially in our place with really high ceilings) but it's was worth the investment.
The other was an old school manual lense, a 50mm 1.4 Pentax. Tom's post about old lenses inspired me to have a look on Ebay for some that suited my Pentax (one of the advantages of the camera when I bought it was that any lens from any Pentax camera could be fitted). I eventually stumbled on this manual 1.4 and picked it up for ~$50. It (will) takes really great photos (when the user gets a bit better). It's from a film camera so the 50mm translates to something that is more portrait like on the Digital (I'm sure there is an equation out there but I haven't found it yet).
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I tired taking some shots of Zach for a bit but my manual focusing skills are a little off. I did like the fact that the Auto Focus sensor still worked even with the manual lens and would beep when I had the image in focus (this was of course only good if the subject didn't move at that same instant). I've put some example photos anyway.
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