[Bramela]

Not nice! Not nice at all!

[DRabbit]

I mentioned threads discussing this problem in the Forums to the tech who was working on my camera. He said not to pay attention to forums because the information is unreliable.

How nice of him (dripping with sarcasm).
I mentioned that I was posting about it online to the tech I've been dealing with (just to let him know there have indeed been other people reporting the problem) … and he didn't seem to really care too much. He wasn't familiar with the fact the K5 too had suffered this problem.

Can't say it inspires confidence that the issue will ever be addressed, especially since their answer now for me is basically "just get a K5-II".

[stevebrot]

I mentioned threads discussing this problem in the Forums to the tech who was working on my camera. He said not to pay attention to forums because the information is unreliable.

The forums are sort of unreliable in the sense that there are a lot of rants (my #*$^^^ Pentax takes crummy pictures) and "chicken little" (there are finger prints on my camera, is this normal?) and the outright dumb (my Pentax camera has melted in the oven. Is this a warranty issue?). On the other hand, there are also situations where a behavior is clearly not normal or acceptable and cannot be traced to bad batteries, mistreatment, or user error and which has been noted by a significant number of people.

Where things start smelling fishy is where the only commonality between those having the reported issue is that all are active on the ******* forum.

For this particular case it would be good to characterize the issue by considering the following:

• Power (low or non-Pentax batteries?)
• Memory card
• Logged errors or error messages
• Bad images before/after stutter
• Drive mode
• Lens mounted
• Live view vs. viewfinder
• # of shutter cycles per session before it crops up
• General use patterns (high #'s per session, cold, humidity)
• Shutter count
• Serial numbers (body and battery)
• Mirror up during shutter stutter
• Mirror down during shutter stutter
• Mirror flips with each stutter (i.e. normal mirror/shutter cycle)
• Damage or part failure in mirror box/aperture coupling
• Other problems noted at the same time
• Actions to remedy

Steve

[DRabbit]

I like your questions Steve. Considering I've run into this issue a lot, I'm probably one of the better people to answer them. You should see my other thread on the issue too.

• Power (low or non-Pentax batteries?)
  Has happened to me with fully charged batteries and much more spent batteries. All are genuine Pentax. Some are older (from K5), but issue has happened even with a brand new one Pentax sent me to try. Though it happens with batteries that are not fully charged, most common occurrence is 5-20 minutes after putting in a new fully charged battery.
  -
• Memory card
  Has happened with a couple of different brands, with older ones and brand new ones. Has happened when I deleted previous batch of photo or after formatting card
  -
• Logged errors or error messages
  Camera didn't throw any visible errors on menu except one time. After upgrading to firmware 1.02, the first shoot I went to I had the problem. At the end of the day the SD card became corrupt and threw the error "Card no formatted". Could have been a bad coincidence or something to do with firmware 1.02 and/or mirror-flap issue. No way to know.
  -
• Bad images before/after stutter
  Nope
  -
• Drive mode
  Manual Focus, Manual (M) exposure mode. Drive mode: Timelapse.
  -
• Lens mounted
  Has happened to me with a variety of lenses. 10-20mm Sigma. DA 35mm Macro (most recent occurrence). DA 21mm. DA 70mm. 40mm Ultra Pancake.
  -
• Live view vs. viewfinder
  both, in that sometimes I do the setup for the time-lapse through VF, sometimes using live mode... but once the camera starts, it's no longer in live view anyway.
  -
• # of shutter cycles per session before it crops up
  Varied. Sometimes it happens at the beginning of the day with only a few hundred shots fired. Sometimes its the middle of the day after I've fired off 2000-3000 shots. No rhyme or reason that I've figured out.
  -
• General use patterns (high #'s per session, cold, humidity)
  Always high number of shots per session (since it's time-lapse). Weather has been varied... I've been inside and outside when it's happened. I've been in temps from 10 degrees up to 55 degrees (F). I've been in snow and rain and dry weather. I run into this issue at nearly every single shoot I'm on, and sometimes there are 2-3 of them per week. I think I run into the issue so much because I'm really putting the camera through its paces.
  -
• Shutter count
  With my first K3 I can't tell you what the shutter count was when it first occurred, but it was early on. With the second K3 it was literally from day one, on my very first shoot with camera, about 2 hours into the day when it first occurred.
  -
• Serial numbers (body and battery)
  Like I said, multiple batteries, all genuine Pentax, from new to old... even brand new one directly from Pentax.
  Body #1 I don't have anymore (got returned when Pentax authorized I do so through a local retailer). Body #2 I'm not sure... # on bottom of camera is 4859575
  -
• Mirror up during shutter stutter
• Mirror down during shutter stutter
• Mirror flips with each stutter (i.e. normal mirror/shutter cycle)
  -
  Camera is as normal other than when it locks up and goes into mirror-machine-gun-freak-out. It sounds as though it completes a photo, mirror is back down, and then it starts to flap uncontrollably.
  -
• Damage or part failure in mirror box/aperture coupling
  Unlikely with two different bodies. That would be some bad luck :P
  -
• Other problems noted at the same time
  Under the same conditions, sometimes the camera goes into a silent lockup. No mirror-flapping, just stops. The display shows it's still shooting time-lapse (shows the countdown), but no photos are being taken. This has happened a handful of times comparatively to the number of times for mirror-freak-out.
  Interesting to note, I shoot a K5-II in the same conditions, at the same photo shoots (usually for a different angel or perspective). On all the shoots I've had problems with the K3 and NONE with the K5-II.
  -
• Actions to remedy
  Pop the battery out. Wait a few seconds, pop it back in. Camera will usually continue fine after that (at least for a little while).

---

Last edited by DRabbit; 02-11-2014 at 06:47 PM.

[stevebrot]

I like your questions Steve. Considering I've run into this issue a lot, I'm probably one of the better people to answer them. You should see my other thread on the issue too.

Now the question is where do other user's experience intersect with yours. I suppose I could have included something regarding phase of moon.


Steve

[SpecialK]

I mentioned threads discussing this problem in the Forums to the tech who was working on my camera. He said not to pay attention to forums because the information is unreliable.

Possibly only slightly better than Amazon :-)

[jhmos]

I like your questions Steve. Considering I've run into this issue a lot, I'm probably one of the better people to answer them. You should see my other thread on the issue too.

• Serial numbers (body and battery)
  Like I said, multiple batteries, all genuine Pentax, from new to old... even brand new one directly from Pentax.
  Body #1 I don't have anymore (got returned when Pentax authorized I do so through a local retailer). Body #2 I'm not sure... # on bottom of camera is 4859575
  -

If you have the invoice for your first K-3, there may be a serial number recorded there.

John.

[jhmos]

The forums are sort of unreliable in the sense that there are a lot of rants (my #*$^^^ Pentax takes crummy pictures) and "chicken little" (there are finger prints on my camera, is this normal?) and the outright dumb (my Pentax camera has melted in the oven. Is this a warranty issue?). On the other hand, there are also situations where a behavior is clearly not normal or acceptable and cannot be traced to bad batteries, mistreatment, or user error and which has been noted by a significant number of people.

Where things start smelling fishy is where the only commonality between those having the reported issue is that all are active on the ******* forum.

For this particular case it would be good to characterize the issue by considering the following:

• Power (low or non-Pentax batteries?)
• Memory card
• Logged errors or error messages
• Bad images before/after stutter
• Drive mode
• Lens mounted
• Live view vs. viewfinder
• # of shutter cycles per session before it crops up
• General use patterns (high #'s per session, cold, humidity)
• Shutter count
• Serial numbers (body and battery)
• Mirror up during shutter stutter
• Mirror down during shutter stutter
• Mirror flips with each stutter (i.e. normal mirror/shutter cycle)
• Damage or part failure in mirror box/aperture coupling
• Other problems noted at the same time
• Actions to remedy

Steve

As per Steve's useful suggestions, here is my one and only instance of runaway shutter.
When it happened, the camera was in 2 second timer mode, not interval shooting. Unfortunately didn't note exact frame fault occurred.

Firmware V1.01.

• Power (low or non-Pentax batteries?)
  There is a %50 chance it was a non-Pentax battery. I think the charge was fine at the time.
  -
• Memory card
  Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB
  -
• Logged errors or error messages
  Don't recall in error messages.
  -
• Bad images before/after stutter
  Nope
  -
• Drive mode
  Manual Focus. Drive mode: 2 second timer.
  -
• Lens mounted
  DA*300.
  -
• Live view vs. viewfinder
  I think Live view.
  -
• # of shutter cycles per session before it crops up
  In my case, maybe 10-20 single shots.
  -
• General use patterns (high #'s per session, cold, humidity)
  Aprox 24C and %50 humidity.
  -
• Shutter count
  About 5300, I didn't record exactly which frame to fault occured.
  -
• Serial numbers (body and battery)
  4860588, Pentax battery 201308
  -
• Mirror up during shutter stutter
• Mirror down during shutter stutter
• Mirror flips with each stutter (i.e. normal mirror/shutter cycle)
  -
  Normal cycle.
  -
• Damage or part failure in mirror box/aperture coupling
  Not as far as I know
  -
• Other problems noted at the same time
  Not that I recall
• Actions to remedy
  Switched off camera, and when that didn't immediately stop the fault, opened battery compartment, but fault stopped before I removed the battery.

John.

[Edchristenson]

I experienced it (once) too on my new K3. I didn't note everything other then I was using the grip with recently charged Pentax batteries and the new 20-40 zoom. I had to open the battery compartment on the grip for it to stop. Didn't seem to damage anything and everything seems ok although I haven't pushed it since. I've used it but for short periods and the photos are fine. It'll be something to watch. Oh, I have the latest firmware too.

[raider]

I was shooting on Saturday and the camera locked up once....

I was on firmware v1.02 and not using a battery grip. I have the silver K-3. I was shooting in Av mode, in RAW mode. The camera just stop responding. There is no runaway shutter. Just the camera stop responding to whatever I press. The only way for me to get out of it is to remove the battery. This happen after me shooting more than 260 photos at an event. The sdcard is nearly full (7 more shots to being 100% full) when this happens.

Just thought I should share my experience.

[jhmos]

I got a lockup today too, also not a runnaway shutter though this time. I had just flicked the switch to video mode, I heard the mirror go up, then camera locked up rather than showing a live screen. Switching the camera off was enough to reset it (once the camera had managed to shut itself down, just a few seconds).

[umber]

Yesterday I got both problems in about 20 minutes. I was in a zoo with my family. I took 2 pictures
of my older son. The lockup happened while I was replaying the pictures. I was outside and the
temperature yesterday was above 50 degrees. I had to unscrew the grip and took out
the battery to bring the camera back.

Then after about 20 minutes, we were at the sea lion exhibition. I was trying to take a picture of my
younger son. I though I could try the face detection in live view mode. So I entered live mode, and
tried to focus on my son. Then since there were other people, I decided not to take the picture and
pressed the live view mode button. Suddenly the camera went wild: the mirror or the shutter firing like
a machine gun. It stopped after a while before I had chance to take out the battery. This was the
second time it happened. The first time was also when I was in live view mode or turning off live view
and the grip was attached too. My wife was so concerned and kept asking why it was like that for a
camera so expensive.

I felt really bad and did not take many shots after that.

[jhmos]

Yesterday I got both problems in about 20 minutes. I was in a zoo with my family. I took 2 pictures
of my older son. The lockup happened while I was replaying the pictures. I was outside and the
temperature yesterday was above 50 degrees. I had to unscrew the grip and took out
the battery to bring the camera back.

Then after about 20 minutes, we were at the sea lion exhibition. I was trying to take a picture of my
younger son. I though I could try the face detection in live view mode. So I entered live mode, and
tried to focus on my son. Then since there were other people, I decided not to take the picture and
pressed the live view mode button. Suddenly the camera went wild: the mirror or the shutter firing like
a machine gun. It stopped after a while before I had chance to take out the battery. This was the
second time it happened. The first time was also when I was in live view mode or turning off live view
and the grip was attached too. My wife was so concerned and kept asking why it was like that for a
camera so expensive.

I felt really bad and did not take many shots after that.

I understand your frustration.
I'm guessing these different lockup problems are have the same cause in firmware. I started counting 'runaway shutter' reports but I'll start counting the other lockups too, just to get an idea of the size of this problem.
Hope Pentax is going to give this a high priority, its not a good look and, now I'm committed, I want the K-3 to be successful.

[stevebrot]

I'm guessing these different lockup problems are have the same cause in firmware.

I am guessing that it is not a firmware problem or it would have been fixed by now.


Steve

[audiobomber]

The tech who worked on my camera said a digital camera is like a computer; sometimes it screws up and needs rebooting, sometimes it needs the battery pulled to reset. I believe this has a lot of credence. My Blackberry had an issue yesterday, the touch screen wouldn't work. I shut it off and restarted, no luck. I pulled the battery and rebooted the firmware, and the touchscreen came back. I've had numerous similar problems with my laptop. The K-3 issues sound the same to me.

I've had a runaway mirror once in two months' use. No recurrences in the two weeks I've had the camera back from service. Next time it happens, I'll take the tech's advice and remove the battery for ten seconds.