Most medium format cameras don't have any light meter built in as standard. Some system cameras (Hasselblads, Pentax 67's, etc) have seperate prism attachments that have light meters built into them, but these are optional extras. The Pentax 645 is one of a handful of MF cameras that has an integral light meter built in as standard.

In fact the Pentax 645 operates like an oversized 35mm SLR and even has a full Program mode should you wish to use it as a point-and-shoot (albeit with manual focus). This is why it makes a great introduction to medium format; if you can use a 35mm camera (or digital SLR) then you should feel fairly at home with a P645 - film loading's different (neither easier nor harder though) from a 35mm camera as it's supplied on rolls rather than in cartridges, but the camera controls are broadly similar and should hold no real surprises.

Light meters can be handy in some instances as they can give more accurate readings in tricky lighting situations, but you won't *need* one with your 645 any more than you need one now with your digital camera. If you *want* one then prices range from about £5 for a half-decent selenium meter of 1950's-70's vintage up to around £750 for a modern example, and all points inbetween. The one I use with my Microflex (which has no meter of its own) is worth around £20 and gives perfectly acceptable results for my useage.

I'd say the best accessory you can buy for a MF camera is a decent scanner. I use an Epson V600 which has proved to be excellent for scanning 120 film (although not so hot at 35mm). I buy my films fairly cheaply from 7dayshop.com (around £3/roll), send them to Genie Imaging for processing (£1.99/roll+VAT) and scan them myself - any I want to print I can then treat as digital files and send to my inkjet as normal. By not getting them scanned at the lab I reckon the scanner has paid for itself nearly twice over in the year that I've owned it (lab scans usually adding £3-5/roll to the development costs, and I think the Epson does a better job tbh).

In the meantime, download the manual from here (password is "Pentax" - case sensitive) and you'll be ready to jump straight in when the camera arrives - I'm sure you'll like it.

The Pentax 645 is an excellent camera and a good introduction to medium format photography. It has a built-in meter (and automatic shooting modes!) so there's no need to buy one seperately. Unless you really want a hand-held meter in which case knowing your budget would help with recommendations.

The Helios is probably the best bang-for-buck lens out there for any system. Great for portraits but fiddly in use compared to a modern lens. Still, as they only cost around a fiver as a rule it may well be worth seeing if you could live with the inconvenience.

There will be many here who can tell you exactly what's happening but not without one of the pictures in question. If you post one of those (or link to one) then we can read the embedded EXIF data to see what the camera was up to.

I thought Traffic Jam before reading the other comments so I'll join the herd too. Great shot

Rickshaw for me. The red tones are fantastic

MUCH better

I quite like the picture but I personally think it would look better as a square cropped from the bottom - the empty branches at the top make a good frame but there's nothing to see in their upper branches that grabs me.

Is it a memorial to a specific building worker or just builders in general btw?

that would make a great TV ad - you should pitch it at Pentax Marketing

Woo-hoo! The coveted second place