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04-22-2014, 03:08 PM   #151
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Finally had this happen to me earlier this month on a vacation in Portugal and Spain. It occurred on two consecutive days under very similar conditions.

Mode:AV
Single shot
Spot focus
Battery grip attached
Hoya/Pentax battery in body; Ricoh/Pentax battery in grip (set to use grip battery first)
Grip battery about 2/3 charged the first instance, 100% the second instance; body 100% charged both times

In each instance, I turned the camera to vertical position and the mirror flap began just as I half-pressed the grip shutter release. I turned the main camera switch to "off" and the flapping continued (sounded faster than top burst speed). In each instance, just as I began to loosen the grip retaining screw, the flapping stopped. No way of knowing if it would have stopped on its own if I had waited, or if loosening the grip just a bit stopped it. I don't think the grip was loosened enough to totally break electrical contact.

In each instance, there were no images recorded nor did the frame count increment. Both times were during the morning and did not occur again the rest of the day. Temps were high 60s. These instances were on days 4-5 of a 10-day trip. The first time was shooting frame #4520. The second instance was shooting frame #4655. Ended the trip on frame #5059 with no further problems.

04-22-2014, 05:48 PM   #152
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QuoteOriginally posted by WaveDancer Quote
Mirror flap does not happen with mirrorless..... LOL!!!!

But seriously, the only thing I should be interested in is (and may be some of the administrators or moderators here could then tell us):
Does Pentax (sorry Ricoh!) meanwhile acknowledge the problem of mirror flapping or not? And if yes, are they meanwhile working on it?
May be it is naive of me to think a camera manufactorer should officially recognize a obvious and serious problem, but still it would be nice to get (may be once) some notice
the problem is analized and solved.
"Pentax" is not a religion I think, but I have the feeling that who ever has a critical mind here, or rises up issues some "believers" or others who have the controll here don't like, gets a real rude mouth full.... How ever, I have myself a bit experience in marketing, it is always better, if there is a problem, to stand to it and fix it! And this could also be communicated - in a proper way. Thank you!

Obviously I'm not an official source, but the specialist I talked to on the phone told me he was submitting a report to Japan. Japan did come back to him with a couple of questions for me to answer, which I did. I was told that they were working on it.

On 4/6/14 I emailed the specialist and asked if there was any word on them fixing the problem. The response I got on 4/7/14 was simply:

"We haven't heard anything yet. Any solution would of course have to be engineered and tested before a solution can be offered. "

Of course, it's not an official acknowledgement because it was only communicated to me, and, because of their silence, I have no way to even know whether they are actually working on it or not. Based on some relatively recent interactions that others have had with repair, it certainly doesn't sound like they are any more capable of fixing it than they were a couple of months ago.

If I was going to make a guess, based on my communication with them, what I've gleaned from others' experiences, and what I know of Pentax with "issues", it's this: They are well aware of the problem, but they haven't been able to track down what is causing it, and in the meantime, they are taking it on a case-by-case basis. Since it happens so sporadically, and its severity seems proportional to how much use a camera gets, there are a good amount of users who don't call Pentax to report the problem, nor do they try to return their camera for service. They likely just take their chances and hope it doesn't happen again... and in fairness, if the camera doesn't get a LOT of use, and they don't require it to be 100% reliable, I wouldn't blame them for taking that route.

Especially in the USA where C.R.I.S is notoriously SLOW.
04-23-2014, 08:01 AM   #153
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Well, it happened AGAIN - and a theory.

Yesterday I was on the campus of Arizona State University, taking "street shots" of the buildings and students. I had taken over 100 shots when the mirror went beserk. I turned the camera off, and the mirror continued machine-gunning. I was about to open the battery door when it stopped, and then no further incidents. The first time this happened to me was back when I first received the camera in November, 2013. I was taking a large number of test shots at the time.

This time II was using the 18-135mmWR, the focus was set on continuous, and I used the program-normal setting. The battery was fully charged, I'm using firmware 1.03.

I'm beginning to see a common thread here. It seems that most often, the flapping occurs during sessions where a larger number of shots are taken in quick succession, such as time-lapse, or in my instance where I was snapping off over 100 shots with maybe 10 seconds to 30 seconds between shots. I'm wondering if the "trigger" is overheating in some component?????. I'm no technician or engineer, but am I the only one to see this commonality?

John
04-23-2014, 09:35 AM   #154
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QuoteOriginally posted by PALADIN85020 Quote
but am I the only one to see this commonality?

It does seem to be a common element in the 'mean' of the reports of the mirror flap issue. However there do seem to be sufficient 'just turned it on and it went berserk' reports to act as exceptions that do NOT prove the rule.

04-23-2014, 10:11 AM   #155
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QuoteOriginally posted by PALADIN85020 Quote
Yesterday I was on the campus of Arizona State University, taking "street shots" of the buildings and students. I had taken over 100 shots when the mirror went beserk. I turned the camera off, and the mirror continued machine-gunning. I was about to open the battery door when it stopped, and then no further incidents. The first time this happened to me was back when I first received the camera in November, 2013. I was taking a large number of test shots at the time.

This time II was using the 18-135mmWR, the focus was set on continuous, and I used the program-normal setting. The battery was fully charged, I'm using firmware 1.03.

I'm beginning to see a common thread here. It seems that most often, the flapping occurs during sessions where a larger number of shots are taken in quick succession, such as time-lapse, or in my instance where I was snapping off over 100 shots with maybe 10 seconds to 30 seconds between shots. I'm wondering if the "trigger" is overheating in some component?????. I'm no technician or engineer, but am I the only one to see this commonality?

John
It has happened to me when just buzzing around the garden taking a few images so it has nothing to do with time-laps or shooting like crazy. But true is that if you shoot alot you will more likely have this happen to you.
04-23-2014, 11:05 AM   #156
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I'm just guessing - but could it be a overheating issue? When overheated, electronic components can play crazy.........
04-25-2014, 08:52 AM   #157
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QuoteOriginally posted by WaveDancer Quote
I'm just guessing - but could it be a overheating issue? When overheated, electronic components can play crazy.........
We explored some of this in one of the other threads about the issue. I looked at my EXIF data which reports the camera's temperature in three different ways (I assume it's from three different places in the body)... and those reported internal temperatures always seemed to be within normal limits.

And anecdotally, I was often shooting outside in pretty cold temperatures, which you could assume helped keep the camera from overheating.

According to the EXIF data I tracked, over the course of about 1300 photos, the camera temperature rose approximately 10º, and at the time the mirror-flapping started, it was reporting temperatures between 27ºC and 31.4ºC (80ºF and 88.5ºF). According to specifications, normal operating temperature should be between -10ºC to 40ºC (14ºF to 104ºF).

imgp7220.jpg
Camera Temperature : 16 C
Camera Temperature 2 : 21.2 C
Camera Temperature 3 : 21.2 C

imgp8586.jpg (last successful shot before mirror-flapping)
Camera Temperature : 27 C
Camera Temperature 2 : 31.4 C
Camera Temperature 3 : 31.4 C

Hope that's helpful.

04-25-2014, 09:09 AM   #158
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I know this is extremely unlikely, but I have now had it happen twice. On both occasions I was shooting jpegs. I have yet to have it happen shooting RAW (I normally shoot to just one card and shoot RAW). I assume this is purely coincidental as there doesn't seem to be any possible connection between file type and mirror flap. But to be sure has anyone had it happen shooting RAW only?
04-25-2014, 09:38 AM   #159
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QuoteOriginally posted by unkipunki Quote
I know this is extremely unlikely, but I have now had it happen twice. On both occasions I was shooting jpegs. I have yet to have it happen shooting RAW (I normally shoot to just one card and shoot RAW). I assume this is purely coincidental as there doesn't seem to be any possible connection between file type and mirror flap. But to be sure has anyone had it happen shooting RAW only?
From what I could see quickly searching this thread, and from what I could tell from info provided, there were at least two people shooting RAW only and at least five shooting RAW+JPG.

Considering write-times are different for raw and jpg, and that could possibly effect overall performance (maybe?), it's not a bad inquiry to make... though it does seem it's happened to people with both file types.

Last edited by DRabbit; 04-25-2014 at 09:43 AM.
04-25-2014, 09:43 AM   #160
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building JPEG FAST! takes a considerable amount of CPU power, but so does writing data to SD. both put some stress on the battery. I still vote for "occasional brown-out" as a cause - and I don't mean sanitary issues this time
04-25-2014, 09:46 AM   #161
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Mine did the crazy thing yesterday... it went nuts for maybe 30 seconds, then it stopped and the camera behaved as if nothing had happened.

I went when I pressed the shutter release to take this image...


It wasn't a high speed shot, nor were a lot of images taken in a short time.In fact, I was just walking around doing what I always do. It stopped before I could determine that the camera wouldn't respond to the power off or pressing any of the buttons and get the battery out of it.
04-25-2014, 09:49 AM   #162
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QuoteOriginally posted by karro Quote
building JPEG FAST! takes a considerable amount of CPU power, but so does writing data to SD. both put some stress on the battery. I still vote for "occasional brown-out" as a cause - and I don't mean sanitary issues this time
Could be possible, but again, in EXIF data explored, there didn't seem to be much indication of it. Over the course of a shoot and looking at each photo's EXIF, it would appear the voltage goes down steadily, which is what you would expect as the battery slowly drains (I'd assume). It didn't seem out of the ordinary, and the shot right before mirror-flap didn't report any unusual spike or drop. Definitely doesn't mean it isn't happening, but if it is, it's not being reported.

And lets assume it is a brown-out... what's causing it, and what makes it happen on the K3 vs. the K5-II/s? As you say, writing JPEGs requires CPU power, so I suppose you could argue that because the file-size is larger on the K3, it's more demand. However, at many of the shoots where the mirror-flap had happened to me, I was shooting JPG Medium or Small.
04-25-2014, 10:17 AM   #163
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voltage is not the only factor here, another is the speed with which the battery can provide the necessary power (I = U/R, significant drop in U or increase in R means less current).
as for the jpegs - I don't know the implementation, and can't elaborate what takes more calculating power - <readout, resizing, then compression, writing a small file> or <readout, compression, then resizing, writing a small file> or <readout, then compressing, writing a large file> or <readout, writing a very large file>.
OTOH, after the initial occurrence of the mirror runaway, I've been shooting with the same battery, till it's in "red", long exposures and videos (no timelapses or high speed shooting, which would involve repeated mirror activations, though), and the K3 was performing splendidly.

all this is not to say, that there's no issue. there definitely is. IF my theory is correct, it is possible, that K3 has been built with really tight "tolerances" power department wise, and that would mean a design flaw. or, we could point our trigger happy fingers towards the mirror mechanism and potential issues, that might be lurking the "increased speed" shadows.
04-25-2014, 11:15 AM   #164
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I'm not bewandered in electronics, but it could be somwhere a single isolated faulty chip or conductor, a wire, somewhere along the powerflow of the battery and a micro-motor or other mechanical part. Not necessarily a mistake or faulty element built by Pentax/Ricoh itself but by a supplier. How ever, something MUST trigger the flapping, to find out is a matter and a must for a search team from Pentax/Ricoh. Hearing (we all don't know realy), they don't even know or deny the problem, rises some more questions, also about the general attitude towards the consumer at the end of the line and shit does always hit the fan if things are not communicated honest, well or not at all. Hope some Pentax/Ricoh guys with influence read all this here. Cheers and happy shooting.....
04-25-2014, 11:19 AM   #165
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Put me on the list, too. I had it happen for the first time a few days ago, after about 5100 shots.

Fairly normal conditions: Single mode shooting, av mode, normal temperature (internal and external), (Pentax/Hoya) battery a bit on the low side, no battery grip.
Serial number: 4833483

Last edited by LimitedFan; 04-27-2014 at 03:13 PM.
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