[karro]

K3, S/N: 4842309;
happened 3 weeks ago, I don't remember all the settings, but this is what I do remember:
1) 50-135 mounted, AF-on, mode - ? don't remember
2) original battery, about 80-90% of full capacity (charged the previous night, mirror flap happened early mid afternoon)
3) the rest of the settings - nothing worth noticing
4) not sure, if related, but I think, I changed the lens w/o switching the camera off before that.
5) 1.03 firmware

before the issue I was shooting some moving subjects (man, that sounds weird..), AF failed to lock and I refocused repeatedly, if my memory serves me well, AF and the camera become unresponsive just before that, but this is not definite.

switching off didn't help; removed and reinserted the battery - all good, never happened since.

[Paul the Sunman]

K3, serial # 4910814

Uncontrolled mirror flap on April 1st -- is that an omen? It hasn't happened before. Around 1500 shots taken so far with the camera.

Was using original Pentax battery. Pentax DA 18-135 lens. P-mode, ISO100, probably f/9. Firmware 1.03. Temperature about 30 Celsius, bright and sunny. Sandisk Extreme Pro 16GB 95MB/s card; no card in 2nd slot.

The flapping stopped as soon as I opened the battery door, without ejecting the battery. I think this was a coincidence.

[i_trax]

It did happen to me in Hong Kong a few days ago, very humid with +22C , the first problem with my K-3 after taking ~ 2500 photos.
Pentax battery (low), K-3 + Sigma Contemporary 17-70 Macro HSM, and suddenly it started "machine gun" noise, had to take battery out, inserted the other fully charged battery and all good.
Pictures were not taken during "machine gun" run.
hopefully will never happen again.

[slartibartfast]

happened today- Pentax battery + battery grip indicates as 50%
K-3 (bought a month ago) + DA 40mm ltd +10C dry air.

switched off camera and it stopped after 2 (endless) seconds. Camera reset itself to the aperture, ISO, exposure... that was dialed in prior to taking the last shot

[isnogud]

happened yesterday, 25 degree C, Pentax battery nearly 100%, Tamron 70-300,

I had a similar problem with my K-5 in Summer, 30 degree. (

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

).
But the mirror flaps of the K-3 are much more 'agressive' and I could only stopp it by removing the battery.

I guess, this error could have something to do with temperature.

[evansph]

Update on my mirror flap problem. I took the K3 out today for some birding shots and noticed that the continuous shooting speed was way down. I had just installed 2 x new 95Mb/s Extreme Pro flash cards and thought they might be faulty. However on returning I compared to my K5IIs with the cards and same lens on both. The K5IIs was twice as fast and easily reached the 7fps but the K3 was struggling to do 3 or 4 and again this was at variable speed sometimes going at 1-2 fps. Emailed the company I bought K3 from and they have a suspicion this poor fps performance might be linked to the mirror slap/flap problem. Will update once the camera has been returned. Gutted as I've only had it for 2 weeks.

[unkipunki]

Happened to me today whilst running ny new HD DA20-40mm through the FocusTune 3.0 LensAlign test routine. Nearly full battery (Pentax original) . Mirror Up & remote control manual mode. Shutter went into machine gun mode. I tried turning off, then turned the catch to release the battery and it stopped. The camera then restet itself to the previous AFA adjustment and changed the shutter speed back to the value that was in use before I got the one I wanted to use for the test shots. I went through 190 shots after that with no repeat of the issue.

[WPRESTO]

Observation from reading these incidents:
1) lens is not the cause
2) type of battery and battery charge state is not the cause
3) ambient temperature is not the cause
4) camera setting - mode, single/multiple frame, viewfinder/live view, etc. etc. - none of these are the cause
5) the mirror but not the shutter is fluttering (no extra images recorded by anyone)

There is far too great a variety of lenses, settings, conditions, battery state etc. etc. for any of these to be the cause.

THEREFORE, the fault is in the camera body, either electrical sensors/switches or firmware, and is related to the mirror mechanism. If the problem is firmware related, Ricoh/Pentax should be able to fix it ASAP. If the the problem is in some contact or switch, all K3 bodies should be recalled for either replacement (if the fault can be and is fixed in production) or refund. Exasperating. This has the potential to kill Ricoh/Pentax reputation.

[Flasher]

Happened to me twice in two days after owning the camera for a few months now.

WPRESTO is right there is no pattern except as someone mentioned above I had just changed the aperture when it went crazy (both times). After removing the battery to stop it the camera went back to the aperture setting before the change. This happened both times and the second time (as someone else mentioned) just a second or so before I was removing the mirror stopped. Both times I had turned the on/off switch to off and then removed the battery.

No grip used. V1.02

It seriously looks like a firmware bug.

[totsmuyco]

I've just read about this bug yesterday while doing some research on the K-3 as I plan to purchase one in the future. I'm sure Pentax can address it just like the bug on the K-5II and K-5IIs. They did a software upgrade to v 1.06 to eliminate the shutter change. At times the camera would say that the shutter was 1/250 while it would suddenly change to 1/2500 thus underexposing the photographer's shot.

All you guys have to do is to keep sending your feedback to Pentax so that they will be able to address the issue as early as possible.

[marosari00]

Has anyone read or heard any acknowledgement from Ricoh on this issue?

It happened to me on a trip back in February. No recurrence, yet.

[audiobomber]

WPRESTO is right there is no pattern except as someone mentioned above I had just changed the aperture when it went crazy (both times).

It happened to me on the first shot of the day, as described above. I had not changed any settings. The camera was in User mode, set for action, and all I did was turn it on and hit the shutter release, and the camera freaked out. (No grip, 3rd party battery, low charge, -17C ambient temperature).

I believe this is a voltage-related CPU issue, but maybe firmware could provide a work-around.

[SteveB]

It could be something as simple as poor tension on the battery contacts. Vibration from when the mirror operates causing an intermittent connection.

[WPRESTO]

It's clearly something involving the mirror return, the shutter is not involved at all. It's as if the device operating the mirror is not being shut off when the mirror reaches its down position. Not sure what mechanism drives the mirror up/down, but I doubt it's the sort of spring driven operation of film cameras. I would suspect some sort of magnetic mechanism with reversing polarity for up versus down, which again suggests either a firmware glitch or some electrical contact that is not operating correctly when the mirror returns to the down position.

[Black_Wizards]

Hello!
First mirror Flapping today!
K3 serial: 4829088
Lens: 50-135mm Pentax f2.8
I was in TAv mode
Something strange: just some minutes before, the shutter button kind of stick itself in some "mid position"... I mean it was "hard". No more half press avalaible. but a light touch can activate AF and classic push take the picture... :-/