All imho, kindly ignore if I am wrong or misinformed.
A small misalignment is one thing, but those three blades are crossed. The blade tips should be all on the one side, each overlapping the next. Those three are overlapping in the wrong direction.
um, I do not have that much experience with this issue, but maybe they've been damaged now that they have been stopped down with the three on the wrong side? Probably not if they smoothly stop down. I don't seen any damage except for the "elevation" which may only be there because the blades are designed that way, and they're free now?
I once had a A50/1.4 that was slightly misaligned but didn't impact photos (not completely octo stopped down) but all blades were overlapping properly you see.
Warning, research this problem or document your use of the lense before you send it in? if the mechanism has been designed so that crossed/wrongly overlapping blades can't happen, then they may claim that the lense has been badly knocked or opened before and badly cleaned/repaired.
EDIT: Looking at my own lenses, I do not think this can happen from a knock or drop. If you've had it cleaned, maybe they didn't put it back together properly. If it is 2nd hand then I would postulate that it has been opened before. If bought new, then factory mistake?
That really really sucks. Fingers crossed that it is a painless procedure with pentax. They've been great to me before regarding a grip I had a problem with. Goodluck
Last edited by cps_goodbuy; 03-25-2010 at 03:50 PM.