Norm, not to sound rude, but apparently you haven't followed the story or you think I'm an idiot...
Originally posted by normhead So let me see if I understand this correctly, you have clients, but not a back up body? ...
Of course I have backup bodies. When I owned the K3, I also had a K5-II, K5 and K-01.
A backup body does not help. Why? Because the only way to prevent mirror-flapping from happening is to not use that body at all. It isn't predictable. It's not a matter of the body failing completely, so you just switch bodies. It happens like this: You are going along happily, shooting and taking your photos or shooting time-lapse (as in my case), and then the camera decides it's going to suddenly start doing mirror-flapping. The shots are lost, and as in my case, they cannot be recreated. Whether you switch bodies at that point or not is besides the point, the moment and relevant shots are already gone.
Originally posted by normhead From my perspective, a client should never even know you went to a back-up body. You change bodies the way you change lenses, pros used to have to change bodies all the time because they were constantly running out of film, and handing one body to an assistant. I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the situation you are describing, maybe you could post a real life scenario where this has affected you.
As described above, there would be no way to predict and prevent a mirror-flapping event. The only way to avoid it is to not use the body effected AT ALL... which was the decision I finally made.
You want real life scenarios? I shoot time-lapse of architectural installations. I can't ask the contractors to "do over" the moments I've lost. These aren't staged, they are real-life installations in real homes. I also often have more than one camera going, so I'm back and forth between two bodies... babysitting a body to make sure it doesn't suddenly go into mirror-flapping craziness or lockup mode is impractical... the body needs to keep performing whether I'm standing two feet away from it or not. The K3 was not able to perform this simple task.
And yes, of course bodies fail. But to give you some comparison, I now have two K5-IIs bodies. I haven't had a single problem with either. I've been using these two K5-IIs bodies since I got rid of the K3, without even a little glitch. Last week, I had both cameras set up in different rooms of a home for nearly eight hours running continuously. Not a single problem with either. No locking up, no mirror-flapping, they just work as they are supposed to. My experience with the K5-II has been the same.
With the K3, at nearly every shoot I went to I was running into mirror-flapping. Originally posted by ofer4 Norm, backup body or not, she doesn't have a backup wedding. I appreciate that malfunctions happen, but I also appreciate that we customers should insist that a product this expensive shouldn't go bat-crap crazy once in a blue moon. I don't own a K-3, but my K-r had this problem...or at least similar symptoms. It became completely prohibitive to take photos with (but since fixed). I would have been a nervous wreck using that body in a professional setting, even with a backup.
And Ofer4 presents another example of a real-life scenario. Me personally, I'd have been terrified to use the K3 at a wedding. Should mirror-flapping occur in the church you would lose shots, shots that can't be recreated, AND you'd piss off the bride and groom when your camera makes enough noise to be disruptive. You might even piss off the videographer by having noise contaminate HIS footage.
As a wedding photographer, you might not run into the issue as often as I did shooting time-lapse, but it would certainly be more often than the casual weekend shooter. At the frequency I was running into the problem, I'd suggest that someone shooting weddings regularly (as their main business) could run into the issue once a month or every other month. That could be a lot of annoyed brides and grooms.
Originally posted by goubejp Doesnt' sound bad for me, as an engineer. The Mirror flop is a random failure, it is very difficult to fix cause there isn't scenario that allows to reproduce the problem and hence to test the fix. I myself encountered only once in february, and never again. They have to perform extensive, long duration tests to be sure that the fix works. They really can't afford to recall the K3s, apply the fix, and have users still reporting Mirror flop issues on a K3 after fix/retrofit
I only somewhat agree. I was REGULARLY running into the problem... and with both my first and second K3 body. I could reproduce it regularly. This is one of the reasons I worked with the Pentax specialist for so long, sending him reports of what was happening, in was conditions and with what settings. There was nothing random about it for me. Probably the hardest part for them to figure out is that it seemed like there was nothing specific that caused it... not settings or SD cards or battery charge level or weather. It could happen inside or outside. It happened whether cold or warm. It happened in a variety of modes with a variety of lenses.
If they really want to know whether their fix works, they should send me another K3.
Originally posted by normhead Exactly, which is why I say this isn't a K-3 issue, it's an issue of professionalism. If you shoot enough, a camera is eventually going to fail, and it's up to you to deal with that professionally. Or a brand new $10,000 camera can be dropped, or fall off a table, or whatever. As mentioned, you only get one chance to do a wedding.
Yeah, the K3 wasn't up to the task, but it didn't take a $10,000 camera body to do the job. The cheaper K5-IIs and K5-II are more than capable.
And I'll repeat it again... the only solution to avoid mirror-flapping isn't a backup body... it's to not rely on it at all.
Originally posted by normhead If you imagine yourself in a professional situation, imagine yourself in a professional situation. Don't imagine yourself shooting a wedding with one K-3 or even one Hasselblad, or one Canon or one Nikon. That's an amateur situation.
You seem to be harping on the fact that having two bodies in any scenario would somehow save you. In a studio environment shooting portraits or food, sure... because your camera failing doesn't matter. In a situation where the camera fails completely, yes, of course a backup body is what will save you.
But in a live event where you cannot recreate the photos you are taking, not so much. If you lose the shots because the camera decides to go mirror-crazy, what are you going to do? How is your backup body going to help? It's not. This is what you're failing to realize.
The bride is saying her vows. There's beautiful light and a beautiful quiet moment where she's looking at the groom. You go to take the photos and BAM, mirror-crazies. Several people in the church turns to looks at you and your noisy camera. You don't get the shots of the bride saying her vows. Even if you are quick-draw-mcgraw and you're able to get the battery out of the K3 to make it stop making noise AND you're able to get another camera up to your face in the same split second, do you think you're able to capture that same moment? Likely not... And likely the bride and groom are pretty f-ing pissed at you for disturbing their vows with your noisy, malfunctioning camera.
Want another less dramatic example? Lets say you're a bird photographer. You spot a life bird and want to get a shot. You quietly get your camera up to your face and go to fire off some photos. BAM, mirror-flapping. The bird flies away. Your camera flapping like that flying bird scares off anything nearby. How does having a backup body help you?
You're a paparazzi. Angelina Jolie comes out of diner and you spot her. You go to fire off some shots and BAM, mirror-crazies. She quickly gets into her car and drives off... there were only moments between the door of the diner and her exit strategy. How does your backup body help you now?
In my case, there are no angry wedding folks, or celebrities or rare birds to contend with... but not being able to leave the K3 unattended for even 5 minutes without risking losing blocks of time-lapse footage, footage that cannot be recreated, became a real hassle-and-a-half. The risk of losing shots became too great.
The ONLY logical decision became to get rid of the K3 all together.
---------- Post added 06-25-14 at 08:35 AM ----------
Originally posted by CypherOz This is identical to the rumor posted yesterday... and sites that source. That source also doesn't seem to claim a "fix" but an "improvement" -- for what it's worth.