[senpyi]

Hi, I'm what you might call an amateur photographer. I have a Q10 and recently decided to also get a K30 with a tripod, lens filters and other fancy stuff off of ebay in a bundle for what I thought was a good price but then I saw that Aperture failure is common in K30's and now I'm really worried and I just wanted to ask some first hand owners, how worried should I really be?

[jgnfld]

Depends how much you paid for the whole kit and kaboodle and what lenses and other gear are included. Probably you made a fine decision.

Yes, the K-30-->K-70 series can fail but failure is irregular and not very predictable. My Interweb advice--for what it's worth!--is to use it heavily as a learning tool. If it continues to work--and it probably will--fine. For example, a K-50 (internally the same as a K-30) that I gave to a friend is now about 7 or 8 years old and working fine. He uses it as a 2nd body now and has moved on to a K1-II for his main body. Anyway, the K-30/K-50 system is very capable. Use the K-30 and only get a new used body (K-5ii on up) if it should fail or you're ready to move on to some extra features that beginners probably won't need in any case. The wonderful thing about Pentaxes is that the lens collection will work on newer bodies and so you preserve whatever value is there.

[shyrsio]

From a poll about the issue I recall that the problem showed(when it did) at around 10000-15000 shutter count, so you might want to check where it is.If its past that, chances are it wont be affected.

[Cerebum]

Percentage wise it hits 20-30% of k30s, allegedly, so that means 70-80% are fine. If it goes a repair will cost you £125. I paid to have mine fixed because its an excellent camera. Don't worry, you did a good thing

[UncleVanya]

From a poll about the issue I recall that the problem showed(when it did) at around 10000-15000 shutter count, so you might want to check where it is.If its past that, chances are it wont be affected.

My k50 had nowhere near that number when it died.

[senpyi]

Depends how much you paid for the whole kit and kaboodle and what lenses and other gear are included. Probably you made a fine decision.

Yes, the K-30-->K-70 series can fail but failure is irregular and not very predictable. My Interweb advice--for what it's worth!--is to use it heavily as a learning tool. If it continues to work--and it probably will--fine. For example, a K-50 (internally the same as a K-30) that I gave to a friend is now about 7 or 8 years old and working fine. He uses it as a 2nd body now and has moved on to a K1-II for his main body. Anyway, the K-30/K-50 system is very capable. Use the K-30 and only get a new used body (K-5ii on up) if it should fail or you're ready to move on to some extra features that beginners probably won't need in any case. The wonderful thing about Pentaxes is that the lens collection will work on newer bodies and so you preserve whatever value is there.

Thank you very much for responding. I paid £350 for the bundle and got the camera plus lens alongside a tripod with carry case, lens filters, two Pentax official batteries, camera cleaning kit and an SD card too so I don't think it was a bad deal.

I'm highly excited for it to come now and I can't wait to be taking pictures with it

[marcusBMG]

I would be happy to fix it for you if you're not up to a bit of diy should it become necessary, I've done a couple now and am happy with the procedure, it's not difficult. No need to pay £125 (and the UK pentax repairer would only replace with a new green solenoid, not the original japanese white one).
See photogem 's threads for the full beta.

[macman24054]

I bought a new K50 and 3 used K30’s. I have sold the K30’s but still have the K50. It has over 30,000 shutter count and at lest one of my K30’s had over 30,000 shutter count. I have had zero failure out of all them. That being said, I used them pretty heavily and none of them sat around until the battery was dead. I hope you get some good use out of your camera!

[UncleVanya]

To be clear, I’m not implying they all fail. I’m just saying there’s some randomness to it.

[MSL]

From a poll about the issue I recall that the problem showed(when it did) at around 10000-15000 shutter count, so you might want to check where it is.If its past that, chances are it wont be affected.

I've seen more reports of the problem arising after the camera wasn't used for a while than it happening at any range of shutter count. Another factor may also have been leaving it with a full battery. But I don't think all the variables were resolved. I'd say it should be a concern, but you also have a sense of what it may cost to fix (and also that it can be fixed). It didn't stop my daughter from buying a K-S2, but she is hoping I can get it fixed soon as she's not interested in using it in manual mode (which is always another option for those that do fail).

[ThorSanchez]

My k50 had nowhere near that number when it died.

My K-30 failed at 7154.

[swanlefitte]

My ks-2 failed over a month ago. I still haven't fixed it because it hasn't bothered me. I have lenses that let me set aperture with the aperture ring. If you are planning on buying lenses get some of the great older ones. They can be found quite cheap.

[ChristianRock]

They all can fail, but there's a very small chance that they'll fail, if you're using them every day.

My K-50 has almost 50K on the shutter now and the aperture block is still solid, no issues whatsoever. And I don't use it as much as I should...

My K-S1 failed last year, with over 20K on the shutter. In the previous years since I got it, I was using it constantly, and had no issues. Last year after I bought the K200D I was using that along the K-50 instead of using the K-S1. So the K-S1 sat unused for long periods of time and the aperture block failed.
(I bought a white solenoid last week to fix the K-S1, when it gets here I'll work on it)

So my advice is, just use the camera a lot. There's no guarantee it won't fail, but if you use it a lot, chances are bigger that it will just keep on singing.

And by the way, there's a forum member here who reported that his K-50 (basically same internals as the K-30) went over 500K (that's five hundred thousand!) shutter actuations and was still going strong. These cameras like to be used! So I'd just say shoot a lot and don't worry about it too much.

[nicolpa47]

I have, at one time or another, followed most of the threads on this subject as I have both a K30 and a K50. The possibility of failure of an individual camera seems to be completely random - it seems that there are high and low use cameras that have failed/not failed over the period since the cameras were introduced. Photogem on here has provided a great insight into the history of the responsible part(solenoid), and has provided detailed instructions for a DIY repair.

In my case, the higher use camera, the K50 at 14,000 actuations, started to fail a few months back, whilst so far the K30 on about 7,000 actuations is ok. I self-repaired the K50 a few weeks ago, and so far it is working fine. Just my experience.

[UncleVanya]

They all can fail, but there's a very small chance that they'll fail, if you're using them every day.

I don’t have that impression for two reasons. 1) mine was used daily and died in the middle of a vacation where I was shooting a lot every day. 2) I recall reading at the time of others failures and they seemed to be quite variable in their use.

Honestly without randomly sampled data outside of this forum I’d say we are all guessing.