[AlTully]

My K30 sat around for a few months before it developed this problem with the shutter failure. A top end repair shop told me they couldn't fix it and that I had to deal with Pentax Canada directly. After 3 emails that they do not answer I'm starting to get angry wih the lack of support. I do have a K3 and it is a fabulous camera, and I will eventually get the K30 fixed for a backup - if I ever get a response from Ricoh! This seems to be enough of a problem with the relatively large amount of dissatisfied customers that Ricoh should not only take a look at the camera model displaying this problem, but develop a more agreeable and suitable customer relations policy .... that's if they want to compete in the camera market.

[Freddie]

I bought my K-S2 about 18 months ago. Over 13,500 shots, lots of travel and bumps and no issue so far.

[dubyam]

I own a k-50 and have absolutely no problems with it. Don't really know why this is such a hot topic. I have 30+ year old k1000 a 20 year old k1000 and a 10 year old zx30. I bought my k50 because Pentax makes very high quality products even on the lower to midrange end and I have experienced no failure of any kind on any of the bodies I own. If there is a failure I would attribute it to miss treatment by the user.

Wow. Condescend much? I can assure you my K30, in which the aperture block failed at just shy of 20,000 actuations, was not mistreated. It's lived a cushy life, in fact, having been stored in climate controlled surroundings in my home, and used regularly in the four years I've owned it. And for the record, I own an H1a which was built around 1964, which my father used to teach me how to shoot film. That camera has many thousands of actuations, and still works fine, having been subjected to the same treatment as my K30. I used it until I got out of film shooting only a decade or so ago. So it's over 50yrs old, and works fine right now. I know how to handle a camera.

So, let me just say, the aperture control block failure is a part quality issue. There are good runs of this part, and the cameras which receive them run fine for long periods of time. And there are bad runs of this part, and those of us with the bad ones will have the failure. It's not terribly difficult to understand.

When mine failed, because the body was four years old, I opted to buy a K3 and upgrade, with the idea I'd get around to sending the K30 off for repair when I had time. I'm hoping to get time to deal with it in the next month or two. It will make a great backup body, and if I get another 20k actuations out of it, the $200 will be worth it. I suspect I'll be ready to upgrade again by that time, and the K3 will become my backup.

[Adam]

So far we've received over 250 responses to the google survey- a great turnout!

About a quarter of responders said their camera suffered from the aperture block issue. This is a safe "worst-case" estimate of the likelihood that this issue will affect a given camera, though the actual figure is most likely lower due to response bias.

Multiple users have reported that the issue does not occur when the D-BH109 AA adapter is used in lieu of the rechargeable D-Li109 battery.

Of the users who reported issues with their camera, there was an even split between:

• Getting the problem repaired under warranty
• Paying out-of-pocket for the repair (most users paid between $150 and $200 in their local currency)
• Ignoring the issue or switching to M42 lenses
• Upgrading to a higher Pentax model, or switching to a different brand (some users sold their broken camera for parts)

Nearly all cameras in the survey, broken or fine, had under 30000 actuations, with about half under 10000. This suggests that these models don't see nearly as heavy use as Pentax's flagship line.


We will publish a full summary on the homepage (with much more detailed data) in the coming weeks.

Adam
PentaxForums.com Webmaster (Site Usage Guide | Site Help | My Photography)



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[Scintilla]

Before buying it I'd visited Pentax Forums quite often, but never really appreciated how prevalent this problem could be. Once I joined after buying the K50, somehow it has become a major issue in my mind, so much so that I rarely visit here - far too depressing reading about the likely future demise of the gear I had been looking forward to using as the K30/50 thread seems to be dominated by the problem. No way am I investing further in the Pentax system, I use mostly my old Praktica lenses and will consider future direction when it dies or get fed up with my limited lens line-up. If I'd done a bit more research here first I would have steered clear of the thing - talk about buyer's regret! That, along with the unbelievably short battery life (410 shots? - I wish, 150 more likely) suggests that next buy may not be Pentax, which is a shame as I used to use Pentax SLRs.
Sorry, rant over. I expect a number of people have been there, bought the T-shirt and so on, but Pentax's silence on the matter is in my opinion likely to put people who have bought into the system at entry level off from continuing with the brand.

On one hand, I'm still shooting with my K-30 despite the problem. Using my Eneloops all the time instead of the D-LI109 battery seems to have solved the problem for now; I had previously stuck to the D-LI109 in order to save my Eneloops in case the ones in my flashes suddenly died and I didn't have a charger handy, but oh well. Come to think of it, this makes me wonder if my D-LI109 is getting old and needs replacement (my camera was apparently built in October 2012, though I didn't buy it until September 2013).

But on the other hand, the issue has made me seriously consider replacing the K-30 years before I had expected to need to (I expected 5-10 years out of it, like my family has gotten with cheap Canon Rebels). And while I do consider a K-3 a possibility, I've found myself taking the previously unthinkable step of trying to price out some other options in a spreadsheet, figuring out which lenses I would need to sell and buy in each case -- be it doubling down on Micro Four Thirds, getting a Sony A7, or whatever. (Canon 5D is out of the running, after playing around with my brother's today.)

On the other other hand, it still didn't stop me from answering that Ricoh survey yesterday with "I am a Pentax fan."

[MSL]

Honestly though, I do not believe there is any connection between shutter count and failure. It's a parts defect issue, so it's a case of does you camera have these parts installed or not. It's of little use to sit there and say my camera doesn't have this issue, because I'm not saying it's model specific. It's a parts issue, and if you haven't been affected, then you are lucky. For those who have been affected, Pentax has failed them.

From the data that is here, it doesn't seem to be a shutter count issue (could just as easily be a power on time issue...). But there does seem to be a possible trend with manufacture date, so if owners could include that it would be very helpful.

[Adam]

From the data that is here, it doesn't seem to be a shutter count issue (could just as easily be a power on time issue...). But there does seem to be a possible trend with manufacture date, so if owners could include that it would be very helpful.

It already is a part of the survey, and will be show along with the results.

Adam
PentaxForums.com Webmaster (Site Usage Guide | Site Help | My Photography)



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[MSL]

It already is a part of the survey, and will be show along with the results.

Fantastic. Thanks for setting this up (and everything else you do for the site)

Sorry Adam - the survey asks for the date of purchase but not the date of manufacture. While for new camera they might correlate it isn't a guarantee.

[Adam]

Fantastic. Thanks for setting this up (and everything else you do for the site)

Sorry Adam - the survey asks for the date of purchase but not the date of manufacture. While for new camera they might correlate it isn't a guarantee.

Ah, good point. Not sure if it would make sense to add the field this late into the survey, but it does look like some users have supplied the information voluntarily in the comments field.

[MSL]

Ah, good point. Not sure if it would make sense to add the field this late into the survey, but it does look like some users have supplied the information voluntarily in the comments field.

No don't change the survey midway. But after it is done, maybe all those who responded yes to a failure could add that info (even if you don't know who they are this could go out as a second request. Or that info can get added here and compiled later on.

[richandfleur]

If Pentax are being professional about this, they would have identified what the root cause is, and what batches were affected.

This survey would then be telling them what they should already know.

[nocturnal]

Some food for thought... Let's say your K30 or K50 only lasted a measly 3,000 clicks. That many exposures would cost you at least $500 in film alone, and that's not even including the developing costs. A new K50 body not too long ago could be bought for less than $300. I'd say everyone with even a "premature failure" has actually already gotten their money's worth!

I couldn't disagree more. A week's worth of time lapse photography and I need to buy another camera?????

Pentax have mucked up big time saving money on a critical part of the camera and won't admit they have ffff'd this one up.

I am on my 2nd K30, the first one not living up to the weather sealing claim and now this specification fault.

You can't compare DSLR with film regarding cost per shutter actuation, film is exotica and sits in my special case upstairs for the next 500 years.

DSLR's are meant to take 100,000s of images so Pentax have under engineered their specification.

I'm telling Julian Assange about this

[richandfleur]

Weather sealing seems redundant over engineering on a camera that in my case lasted less that two years, at an average click rate.

[gramar]

I have just completed the online survey and have not experienced any problems.

Pentax K-30
Manufacture date: 2012.09.03
Purchased on 2012.12.13
Shutter count: 4824 ---- I must get out more!!

[Pfan]

If Pentax are being professional about this, they would have identified what the root cause is, and what batches were affected.

This survey would then be telling them what they should already know.

Bang on.