Originally posted by reh321 The judge probably didn’t know, and the Pentax lawyers had no reason to add more confusion to the mix, but the plaintiffs also didn’t have their facts straight. Different cases will differ of course, but I have seldom seen a photo result that is totally dark. Most of the photos resulting from my K-30 are pushed to the dark - say 1/4th - side of the histogram ….. but there is still some light. Perhaps the body gets f/22 when it should have gotten f/5.6, but it does get some light. But as the judge said, Pentax never promised that it would work perfectly forever; that would have been a foolish promise for something that cost $3000, let alone under $1000.
I think the issue is that no one has said for sure what the expected life span of the camera is. The warranty was for one year, which seems short to me, but this particular fellow's camera lasted four years.
My kids get toys at the dollar store sometimes. They typically break in a few day's time, which seems like a short time, but probably what is expected for that quality of product. I think a K-50 should last six or seven years with appropriate care, but if you didn't know about the aperture block issue, you wouldn't be surprised if a four year old camera, that was 500 dollars new, decided to get flaky on you.
Anyway, I think in these sorts of lawsuits, if most of the gear is lasting past the warranty period, it is hard to get a court to say that the company is selling a defective product.