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View Poll Results: Have you experienced any problems with your K-3?
My K-3 has never had any problems 5963.44%
My K-3 has or have had minor problems that do not render it unusable 3032.26%
My K-3 has or have had major problems that render it unusable 44.30%
Voters: 93. You may not vote on this poll

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11-19-2013, 11:54 AM   #1
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K-3 reliability poll

I'm seeing lots of problem reports on this forum. To more accurately assess the reliability of the K-3, I am now running a poll similar to this one.

To ensure accuracy, please vote if you have a K-3 whether or not you have ever had any problems. If the camera has been repaired, report the state of the camera before it was repaired. This poll will close in 30 days so that it represents only the issues early in the camera's life cycle, since some of these problems will probably be fixed in the future. I may run an identical poll in the future to determine if reliability has improved.

Edit: As requested by @Adam, if you have experienced any problems with your K-3, please report them as replies below so that Ricoh can determine what problems need to be addressed.

--DragonLord

11-19-2013, 11:58 AM   #2
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It would be nice if anyone that doesn't select the first choice could also reply and state the issue. That would allow us to forward the feedback to Pentax if needed.

Adam
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11-19-2013, 12:12 PM   #3
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M silver K-3 is running down its batteries (body and grip), whether turned on or off, in about 24-48 hours.
11-19-2013, 12:21 PM   #4
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A possibly significant issue with this poll is that people with already-identified problems will vote early. The rest of us who have only had our new cameras a short while without problems will be reluctant to vote early in case we experience problems later. Then, we have to remember to come back here in a little less than a month to vote, so the results could be well-biased, at least in terms of proportion, potentially making it troll bait. However, the great redeeming feature is the request for detail to give feedback to the manufacturer.

11-19-2013, 01:01 PM   #5
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I have a problem with the top LCD. See https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/172-pentax-k-3/243061-top-lcd-problem.html

I have voted 'minor problem'. It's not really that minor but it is far from rendering the camera unusable. None of my previous camera had a working top LCD (or even a non working one for that matter) and somehow I still managed to shoot good photos.

@CarlG, are you by any chance leaving the SD card door open? I had found with my K-30 that leaving it open drains the battery even with the camera turned off. Not sure why but I actually tested and confirmed it. I used to leave the door open to remind me that there is no card in the camera but I've had to stop that practice because of the battery draining. I don;t know if the K-3 does the same - never tried it since learning not to do it with the K-30.
11-19-2013, 01:43 PM   #6
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Lister is right (thanks!), my issue is leaving the SD card door open and if it is that simple there is one vote too many in the red category above. Guess this isn't a good thread to discuss why Pentax chose to do it that way!
11-19-2013, 01:52 PM   #7
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It has no big sense to make this poll with 1.0 release of the firmware.
Let's vote in 6months.
Of course we can further collect both good and worse experience from users.

11-19-2013, 01:53 PM - 3 Likes   #8
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I learnt the hard way to keep your SD card door closed. A small ant or mite got into my K-x one day after I left the SD card door open over night. It was very disconcerting seeing him crawling all over the focus screen while I was trying to shoot.
11-19-2013, 01:56 PM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by CarlG Quote
M silver K-3 is running down its batteries (body and grip), whether turned on or off, in about 24-48 hours.
If so do a full reset in the menus.

This was problem with K-7 and K-5 where having a battery in say the body would empty overnight, even when turned off.... Doing a full reset of all functions, previously fixed this issue.

Last edited by Freak; 11-19-2013 at 02:57 PM.
11-19-2013, 01:59 PM - 1 Like   #10
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Keep in mind that forums are always hotbeds of complaints, because users who have problems are more likely to seek out a forum and talk about it. A user who is happily using his camera wont have such a presence online, wont be as vocal. You are polling people who are most likely to have problems, this is not a representative poll made on the population of all K-3 units. I expect this poll will show that "every second camera is defective" or some other such terrible trend - a trend that is not real
Considering this camera just came out, I think it might be too early for polls about reliability. Maybe about overall QC, if you contrast the results to total number of units sold. Of course, that would also not be accurate because not every K-3 owner will see this thread.

Last edited by Na Horuk; 11-19-2013 at 02:04 PM.
11-19-2013, 02:20 PM   #11
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Mine has locked up twice while shooting a long burst and once while processing a test shot of one of the filters. Out of 2000 images that's nothing to worry about. I'm sure firmware will improve stability.
11-19-2013, 02:24 PM   #12
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QuoteOriginally posted by rawr Quote
I learnt the hard way to keep your SD card door closed. A small ant or mite got into my K-x one day after I left the SD card door open over night. It was very disconcerting seeing him crawling all over the focus screen while I was trying to shoot.
This is gold! I must admit I sometimes leave my SD Card door open for a few hours (until I remember to take the SD card out of my laptop and put i back in the camera!). The reason I do this - I don't want to accidentally go out with my camera without a SD card in it and if you start shooting without an SD card the problems not immediately obvious.

After reading this I will adopt a new practice - swap out SD card in camera with my spare card while downloading!
11-19-2013, 02:43 PM   #13
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External PTTL flash do not work on my K3. (Works on my old K5IIs.)
Did resend to seller.
11-19-2013, 02:48 PM   #14
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In term of defect, so far I have problem only with translation to Czech language. More custom functions options are badly translated from English, even that they don't make sense. Its only minor issue for me.

11-19-2013, 03:23 PM   #15
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Locked up

Mine just locked up once so far. I just turned it off and back on.
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