Switching Between SD Card Slots on the Pentax K-3 III

It's now easier than ever to choose where to save your photos

By PF Staff in Articles and Tips on Jan 30, 2022

If you've owned the Pentax K-3, K-3 II, K-1, K-1 II, or 645Z, you may have noticed that there was no menu option for selecting the active SD card slot for saving photos: if you wanted to switch from one slot to the other, you had to use a workaround involving power cycling the camera twice while temporarily removing the currently active card.

Fortunately, the Pentax K-3 Mark III does away with this nonsense, as it offers a convenient way to specify the slot. Rumors have it that this was not possible before due to patent restrictions.

Method 1

The fastest way to specify the card slot is through the control panel:

make sure your camera is currently in an image shooting mode (viewfinder or live view), i.e. by half-pressing the shutter button
press the INFO button to access the Control Panel
highlight or touch the SD slot tile in the lower-left corner
turn the front e-dial to switch between SD1 and SD2

Note that this will only work if the camera is set to sequential mode for storing photos. It also works in video mode. If you choose to separate RAW and JPEG files when shooting in RAW+, at the moment (Firmware v1.02) the RAW files will always go to SD1 while the JPEGs will go to SD2.

Method 2

You can also make the same changes through the main menu.

Press the MENU button
Highlight and select (or touch) the camera icon in the upper-left. This opens the "Still image"/Record menu
Scroll down to the 5th page
Select "Memory Card Options"
Press OK
Select "Card Slot Sequence" and choose the desired slot