[goubejp]

I had the machine gun shutter happen only once, firmware was 1.02, it was in february. Since then, no issue, I use 2 K3 and had made 10000 shots; no battery grip, always full charge batteries.

[audiobomber]

One user has already posted that when the fault happened, it also seemed to have broken his camera completely. It would no longer power on after the mirror-flapping fault occurred. Considering the aggressive nature of this flaw, I think the attitude of "one time is acceptable" is a bit short-sighted.

You can't say for sure that the camera failure was due to the same problem you experienced. Electronic devices fail more frequently when new. Could be a poorly soldered joint, static on the CPU, component failure, etc. You should stop recounting that story, it is unique and unconfirmed.

[DRabbit]

You can't say for sure that the camera failure was due to the same problem you experienced. Electronic devices fail more frequently when new. Could be a poorly soldered joint, static on the CPU, component failure, etc. You should stop recounting that story, it is unique and unconfirmed.

As much as you can't say it didn't cause the failure. It happened to him right after the mirror-flapping, so it's as likely to be the reason as any. It's certainly not an unreasonable assumption at all. It's not like his camera died a month later and I'm blaming the crazy mirror for it.

Honestly, you and Gosman seem to insist on constantly replying with your two cents. I asked right at the beginning of this thread for it to just be a place to report the issue. I've been extremely reasonable in all my assumptions and conclusions, and amicable to suggestions. The constant telling me how I'm wrong for even suggesting that the K3 might be anything less than perfect is really just getting old. If you don't like that people are reporting their problem, stop reading this thread.

I'm not sure this is exactly the 'machine gun' like mirror flop problem, but my K3 has been acting up this evening quite a bit. It's firing sporadically by itself, maybe a shot every 3 or 4 seconds quite randomly. I was mostly on multiple exposure mode each time, although it has happened on single shot also (twice). The screen was blank after each time it did this in single shot mode. It's happened five times this evening over a period of an hour and a half of shooting. Ive removed the grip and take out the battery but still faced the issue again after. I'm shooting a three week old Pentax K3 silver with genuine Pentax batteries. I had the mirror flop issue with the K5 before and it was nothing like this. Anyone else have similar problems?

Hey Bert… the first thing I would suggest is that you make sure you weren't accidentally in the wrong drive mode. It almost sounds like you were accidentally in interval or interval composite mode, instead of the drive mode you wanted to be in. I found it was easy to accidentally have selected the wrong one.

Of course, I don't mean to suggest you did anything incorrectly… just covering bases

If it was an error/fault, was it just the mirror flapping, or did the camera actually take photos? I know you said the screen was blank, but you didn't indicate if a blank photo was actually taken. It sounds really strange. I know I've had the mirror-flapping as well as silent lockups, but your issue sounds different… and like one I haven't heard before.

[captainbert]

Hey Bert… the first thing I would suggest is that you make sure you weren't accidentally in the wrong drive mode. It almost sounds like you were accidentally in interval or interval composite mode, instead of the drive mode you wanted to be in. I found it was easy to accidentally have selected the wrong one.

Hey Bert… the first thing I would suggest is that you make sure you weren't accidentally in the wrong drive mode. It almost sounds like you were accidentally in interval or interval composite mode, instead of the drive mode you wanted to be in. I found it was easy to accidentally have selected the wrong one.

Of course, I don't mean to suggest you did anything incorrectly… just covering bases

If it was an error/fault, was it just the mirror flapping, or did the camera actually take photos? I know you said the screen was blank, but you didn't indicate if a blank photo was actually taken. It sounds really strange. I know I've had the mirror-flapping as well as silent lockups, but your issue sounds different… and like one I haven't heard before.

How do DRabbit,

Yeah, that's the first thing that i checked i.e. that i wasn't accidentally shooting in interval composite mode. It was happening in single frame shooting too. It hasn't happened since and I've been tinkering with it all night. Will see what happens, i need a firmware update though as i'm still on 1.00.

[gosman]

"The constant telling me how I'm wrong for even suggesting that the K3 might be anything less than perfect is really just getting old."


I don't think I said anything about suggesting the K3 is anything less than perfect. Read my statements more carefully. I'm the six sigma guy- do you know what that means? You seem to have an one-up-me attitude so I will let this be my last statement and you can one-up me one more time!

[Erd§]

As much as you can't say it didn't cause the failure. It happened to him right after the mirror-flapping, so it's as likely to be the reason as any.

If any other reason is as likely, why do you keep bringing up the mirror flap as "probably" being the issue? This is pure assumption on your part to make your case appear more effective.

I've been extremely reasonable in all my assumptions and conclusions, and amicable to suggestions. The constant telling me how I'm wrong for even suggesting that the K3 might be anything less than perfect is really just getting old.

I don't see where has anyone said that. Do you really think that is a reasonable conclusion?

That's where Pentax need to step up and investigate, because I don't think 80+ reports of the issue in a month's time is insignificant.

The above quote is the most telling. While you accuse some people of minimizing the problem because it's only happened to them once, or not at all, I think you're just as guilty of unfairly "maximizing" it...for want of a better term. The 80+ reports are over the life of the K3's existence. But that wasn't how you tried to make it sound.

Look...I don't doubt you have a fair beef with Ricoh/Pentax regarding the K3, and I support your stance to pressure the company into a fix, but let's keep things in perspective and fairly balanced.

[mamethot]

I first experienced the machine gun effect yesterday after 4100 shots. Nothing particular about the shooting environment. Single frame shooting drive mode, Av f8, iso100. AF.s.

Lens was a tamron 17-50 2.8

It lasted approximately 5 seconds then stopped at the same time I opened the battery compartment.

The I restarted the camera and took my first image with it:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/lPu6H2DMOBIMMX0UUSCKJ-4OBvOZfsZ7vm6dhj...eat=directlink

That's right, that's a monster blob of whatever right on the sensor.

Not only that, there was also a tiny piece of whatever (plastic, rubber?) that I could see in the viewfinder. That I can't get a picture of, but it looks like a small piece of plastic.

The camera is going to Henry's at this very moment. SN 4830449

[DRabbit]

Erd: Read Mamethot above. Talk about timing. LOL
And again, call it just a coincidence if you like, but with the mirror slapping around so aggressively, it's not an unsafe assumption to think if a camera suddenly exhibits a problem right after a crazy-mirror incident, it could have likely been caused by that incident. We now have two reports of people having more substantial problems immediately following the mirror-flapping.

Sometimes the simplest, most obvious conclusion is indeed the right one.

Marc... sorry to hear of your troubles!

[Erd§]

it's not an unsafe assumption to think if a camera suddenly exhibits a problem right after a crazy-mirror incident,

You still don't get it, do you...until you open up the camera and make a diagnosis, you cannot say for sure what caused the problem.
Cameras stop working for no apparent reason. Cameras develop blobs on the sensor for no apparent reason.
Yet 70+ K3's that had a mirror flop incident continue to work. What does that tell you about Occam's razor?
But feel free to continue to selectively ignore a couple of my other points. I'm with gosman. Good luck.

[DRabbit]

Erd: The fact there's a few of you who insist on arguing over all of this constantly, tells me one thing: You would not have had even half the patience I had in dealing with the issue. Draw any conclusion you like, but realize that I was using two K3s through this problem for nearly 5 months to try to help Pentax figure out what was causing it. I don't jump to conclusions because it suits the argument. I think you're being blind to ignore things that seem obvious... or at least reasonable.

Nothing can be proven about the mirror-flap issue, and guess why? Because Pentax has given no one an answer on it. It could be a prevailing problem with every K3 that occurs more frequently the more you use the camera... or it could be a bad batch of K3s. It could be an issue you'll never run into or one that everyone, at some point, will have. It could be an issue that causes other problems, like blobs and cameras deaths for a percentage of the people with problems, or it could just be a fluke that some people who've had the problem have other problems too. Pentax has to track that all down.

Considering that in the life of two K3s I owned I had the mirror-flapping, silent lockups, and one corrupt SD card (following mirror-flapping), I happen to think all these glitches are tied together... at the very least, in regards to the camera's overall reliability. I don't own one anymore, so I have no dog in this fight. I just happen to think it's the right thing for Pentax to address the issue, the way Fuji did with the light leak problem. I'm a Pentax user still... and want to be able to buy their cameras with confidence. You should want that too.

Even Steve Huff, who published my article on the whole thing, had the K3 sent to him lock up, and he couldn't review it. We haven't even addressed silent lockups in this thread, but I bet there's a whole lot of people who have had that happen. It goes back to reliability.

And yes, every camera can have it's problems. I've owned enough to know that. But the K3 was the first camera I've ever owned where reliability was truly questionable. It's was the buggiest camera -- through two bodies -- I've ever had the experience with.

[Ray Pulley]

Honestly, you and Gosman seem to insist on constantly replying with your two cents. I asked right at the beginning of this thread for it to just be a place to report the issue. I've been extremely reasonable in all my assumptions and conclusions, and amicable to suggestions. The constant telling me how I'm wrong for even suggesting that the K3 might be anything less than perfect is really just getting old. If you don't like that people are reporting their problem, stop reading this thread.

Why do you keep posting to this thread with your "two cents" if you asked at the beginning of this thread for it "to just be a place to report the issue"?

Pot meet kettle.

Ray

[awaldram]

Look...I don't doubt you have a fair beef with Ricoh/Pentax regarding the K3, and I support your stance to pressure the company into a fix, but let's keep things in perspective and fairly balanced.

And in the interest of balance.......

Drabit
"I had a pretty severe SD card issue after updating firmware. I had updated to 1.03 with my first K3 body, hoping to solve the mirror-flap issue. "

which seems strange given her instance her SD card are rock solid and could not possibley be to blame for the evil corporations dodgy camera !!

Maybe I missed Amy pointing out she had a faulty/uncompatable SD card ??

Come on AMy at least keep your story straight "one corrupt SD card (following mirror-flapping)"

Your fast reaching the point where it looks like obsession rather than any real interest in root cause anlysis.

It 'mirror flopping' everyone same issue same fault because you say so !! It destorys cameras , corrpupts SD cards and will even sour the cream !!

[pinholecam]

I use lots of cameras (or had them).
Do they lock up once in a while? - yes
Do they have issues like turn on delay, refusal to AF, wrong focus ? - yes

I don't then go on and start a poll with the intent to use it as a weapon on my review (published on Steve Huff) on a well read website in the mis-information that its the truth and verdict on the camera.
Too bad, Steve in this temporary 'I need to reveal it as truth' moment decides that your version/experience is the right one to share.

If my camera has serious faults, I'd send it for servicing.
Most likely, I'd document it and post in on a forum too, well indicating that it was my sole bad experience and perhaps other should look out for it (and constructively have workarounds if there are any)
I certainly won't be so vehement to try to make it "National Front page news" nor go thru the trouble of collecting data to use as 'proof'
I might even change systems, slow down/stop my purchases of said brand.



Just when Pentax manages to climb out of the grave pit, someone decides to give a kick....
Just got to love Pentaxians.... always so 'smartie'

[DRabbit]

Ray: Because people keep adding their two cents which contain questions or accusations, and then I try to get it back on track, which I'm obviously failing at doing. LOL

Pinholecam: That's some accusation, which I actually address right on the article you are referring to. My intention was NEVER to use a poll as "ammunition", as if my goal all along was to buy two K3s bodies with problems and then attack Pentax for it. To the contrary, I actually tried to help Pentax out for a long time… a very long time by most people's standards… to track the issue down. I held off publishing my article for a very long time about the issue because I was hoping they would get to the bottom of it.

It wasn't my sole bad experience, and someone else actually suggested the idea of starting a list to count all the people with the same issue, so that's what I did. Seemed a logical idea.

And I couldn't send it in for services, which as I've said several times, because Pentax had no way to fix something they didn't know the root cause of.

"Just when Pentax manages to climb out of the grave pit, someone decides to give a kick.... " -- Ridiculous statement. I'm not the one to manufacture the camera.

And in the interest of balance.......

Drabit
"I had a pretty severe SD card issue after updating firmware. I had updated to 1.03 with my first K3 body, hoping to solve the mirror-flap issue. "
which seems strange given her instance her SD card are rock solid and could not possibley be to blame for the evil corporations dodgy camera
Maybe I missed Amy pointing out she had a faulty/uncompatable SD card ??
Come on AMy at least keep your story straight "one corrupt SD card (following mirror-flapping)"
Your fast reaching the point where it looks like obsession rather than any real interest in root cause anlysis.
It 'mirror flopping' everyone same issue same fault because you say so !! It destorys cameras , corrpupts SD cards and will even sour the cream !!

I guess you missed the part right at the beginning of this thread where I say I used/tested several SD cards, different brands and sizes… and the problem happened no matter which I used.
I've told the SD card story before… so you quoting me in the context of someone else having a card error seems to have no other purpose but to argue with me some more.

The SD card issue happened with the first K3 body before I exchanged it for the second. I updated the firmware to see if it would resolve the problem, and at my very next shoot I had the problem with the SD card. This was after months of already having the problem… this was after several different SD cards had been tried, with no relief of the crazy-mirror. And this was before I got the second K3, with a whole brand new SD card, which had the same crazy-mirror problem on photoshoot day one.

So I don't know the point you're trying to make at all.

All of you with questions and accusations and let's pile on DangRabbit mentality… why don't you start a new thread just for that purpose. Or use one of the others I nicely requested at the beginning of the thread that you use?

[awaldram]

Erd: Read Mamethot above. Talk about timing. LOL
And again, call it just a coincidence if you like, but with the mirror slapping around so aggressively, it's not an unsafe assumption to think if a camera suddenly exhibits a problem right after a crazy-mirror incident, it could have likely been caused by that incident. We now have two reports of people having more substantial problems immediately following the mirror-flapping.

Sometimes the simplest, most obvious conclusion is indeed the right one.

Marc... sorry to hear of your troubles!

Yep Marc camera had a foreign body stuck in the shutter the camera flipped the mirror to re-seat (as teh firmware is designed).

It succeeded in releasing the debris which is now visible for all to see.

Not the conclusion you made ? But is really teh obvious conclusion given what we know about Pentax cameras rather than what you amke up to fit your story.!

Marcs camera was unfortenaly faulty at manafacture with a foreign body in it, the mirror flap is a symptom not the cause.

---------- Post added 19-04-14 at 06:11 AM ----------

All of you with questions and accusations and let's pile on DangRabbit mentality… why don't you start a new thread just for that purpose. Or use one of the others I nicely requested at the beginning of the thread that you use?

Because you pebble dashing all forums with you take on Pentax the evil corporation,