[fgaudet]

No mirror flop issue (yet I guess) with my K3;
Had it for about a month, running latest Firmware
- Serial #: 7029369
- Shutter count: ~5000
- I used interval mode a few times already
- With new and old D-LI90 (between 5 years old and new) and also with China knock-offs battery. Usually I change battery only when I get the battery depleted message.
- Sometimes with a modified D-BG4
- With DA*50-135, Sigma 35 (A), DA18-135, DA50, Sigma 10-20 (3.5), Sigma 17-70 (v1), Sigma 120-400 and with some A and K lenses.
- With Sandisk Extreme Pro 32gb and a few times with a Transcend 16gb wifi card.

However, I had a few glitches, some often enough to be annoying.
- At times , in P mode exposure compensation would lock, not allowing me to change settings or:
- Still in P mode, settings would lock (aperture, shutter, exposure comp, ISO) but the camera will change them to get proper exposure... so it's kinda like if the camera was in green mode. Those two issues are fixed by turning camera OFF and back ON. Did happen at least twice daily on my last trip.
- Camera would refuse to auto-focus out of the blue... I mean on one picture AF works right, on the next AF will not engage. Toggling the AF/MF switch on camera or on lens doesn't fix it, neither does changing AF mode... At first I though it was my SDM that died but it happened also with a couple of my Sigma HSM lenses. I didn't use the K3 with screw drive lenses enough to be sure but so far it looks like it only happens with SDM/HSM lenses. Another easy OFF/ON fix. Happened maybe 5-6 times so far.
- Camera completely locked up on me a couple times, requiring me to take the battery out, both times with no grip and with a D-LI90 and the DA* mounted on it.

And the one that kills me, it happened twice in one day (about two weeks ago) and never happened again. My camera is setup to shot RAW, I never use jpegs but I have them set at L***. My RAW/FX button is set for turning SR ON/OFF. I was shooting some landscapes for a while (couple hours maybe, camera ON the whole time) and afterwards while reviewing the pictures in camera I noticed that after a few RAWs (4-5), the pictures were now jpegs XS* (2mpix, low quality)... about 100 shots pretty much wasted ... I quadruple checked everything and all my settings were still as they should. I had shut down the camera when done shooting and it was now back to RAW. It happened again later on that day but I was checking on the camera after every shot and caught it right away. It was pretty chilly outside (45F, 7C) and very, very, very wet (at dawn after a rainy night) and I had non-WR lenses mounted (sigma 10-20 and sigma 35 later). From then on, I turned off the camera as often as I could between shots and it never happened again.

I'm still happy with the K3 but it is no where near as reliable as my K5 which hasn't failed me once with tens of thousands of shots. But these are small quirks in software which may be fixed with later Firmware update, mechanically it has been working good.

[geomez]

K-3 owner w/o mirror flap.

SN: 4874168
Batteries: D-LI90, D-LI90P, Wasabi Power
Grip: No
SD Card: SanDisk Ultra 32GB Class 10, Patriot LX Series 32GB Class 10
Lenses: Listed in my signature

*Have NOT shot timelaps*

Correction: had my first mirror flop a couple weeks ago.

[Tom777]

Correction: had my first mirror flop a couple weeks ago.

No mirror flop issue my K3;
Had it for about 3 mths, running latest Firmware
- Serial #: 4833882


Tom G

[jbinpg]

@fgaudet - That is why I have my most used settings on a User mode. If you lock everything into a User mode, it seems that the K-3 respects the settings. Still, I find myself inadvertently hitting a button I shouldn't even in a User mode and need to reboot to default User mode settings by turning the camera off and on. Vigilance is key here especially for old film shooters where it was unlikely that a setting would ever be changed without your doing so intentionally. We really need a tailored lockout button for digital such as is available on the new 645z.

Jack

[SkipperRi]

No mirror flap. I owned K-3 from february.
S/N: 4857702
Grip: Yes
Batteries: One genuine, three from eBay
Shutter count: ~3000

Firmware: 1.03

[fuzzyfelt30]

No problems as yet, owned it since end of November
Serial no. 4833541
2 genuine Pentax DLI90 batteries
No grip
Lenses used DA*, D-FA, SIgma HSM,
Mode generally Av with AFS
Sandisk Extreme SD cards 16GB & 32GB
Shutter count around 8000
Firmware up-to-date

[dane.dawg]

I had my first problem the day after I posted on this thread and I know now why people are concerned, I knew I jinxed myself

[gzub]

I had the problem 3 times, varied setting of the camera. Can be really frustrating. I contacted Pentax service and they told me to send the camera for inspection. I am still thinking about it since there is new firmware will see if it will resolve the problem with flapping mirror. I am just curious why there is no official information from Pentax regarding the new firmware that it solve this particular issue.

[Dougg]

No mirror flap... yet! Got K-3 May 18.
S/N: 4920462
Grip: No
Batteries: One genuine, no others
Shutter count: ~800
Firmware: 1.03

Doug

[rutster]

Wish i could post that i didn't have the problem. But i bought 2 new K3's a few months ago, first one went crazy at about 10,000 clicks. Switched to the second one to add some clicks to it and it just went crazy on me friday.. 0 for 2 here. I'm thinking its a bigger issue than we think, and it might not be a matter of "if it's going to happen" it's going to be a "when it's going to happen"

[dicks]

K-3, purchased early November 2013
Serial: 2574060 (Silver)
Grip: Yes
Batteries: Genuine (2 included)
Shuttercount +1000
Firmware: 1.10

[robthebloke]

My thoughts as well.

Ive seen the flop first hand, and I don't think it's mechanical. It has all the hall marks of a race condition (ie software problem). Turning it off and on again, doesn't fix mechanical problems. It's most likely to be a timing issue between the mirror & shutter (which then locks the camera os in an infinite flappy mirror loop)

Race conditions are evil to debug and fix (mainly because they can't be debugged). The 'classic' case study:

An Investigation of Therac-25 Accidents - I

6 occurrences in 18 months, and it was only fixed after the operator on the last accident could perfectly reproduce the steps needed to cause the failure.

[Dr_who]

Ive seen the flop first hand, and I don't think it's mechanical. It has all the hall marks of a race condition (ie software problem). Turning it off and on again, doesn't fix mechanical problems. It's most likely to be a timing issue between the mirror & shutter (which then locks the camera os in an infinite flappy mirror loop)

Race conditions are evil to debug and fix (mainly because they can't be debugged). The 'classic' case study:

An Investigation of Therac-25 Accidents - I

6 occurrences in 18 months, and it was only fixed after the operator on the last accident could perfectly reproduce the steps needed to cause the failure.

I had a K5 With mirror flop and it was Diagnosed as a bad circuit board that had to be replaced. Not saying k3 is same issues but sometimes different issues can cause similar effects. And yes turning off and removing the battery would help.

[David&karen]

I am a Medical Radiographer and remember the Therac-25 accidents very well, scared the hell out of all of us. I believe there was an overdose issue with some Siemens units a few years later where the Radiation Therapist would accidentally type in a wrong dosage(too high) then delete it with the delete key on the keyboard and type in the correct dosage. The stupid machine would give the original dosage(incorrect) that was typed in. It was a software bug.

David

[MJSfoto1956]

I was about to enter my name into the list of K-3's that don't exhibit this behavior but this very day, the mirror flap reared its ugly head for the first time. Here's what I did just prior to this behavior happening:

Warm (not hot) summer day with lots of light rain spent photographing the scenes in Provincetown MA. No heavy downpours. K-3 + 60-250mm did "get wet" but not excessively so. Afterwards, got on a ferry with a bit of chop and tried to photograph the lighthouse as the ferry passed by. Put the lens at 250mm and focused on the lighthouse as I was trying to stay stable on the ferry deck and voila -- the machine-gun fire of the mirror flapping away with abandon. No additional pictures were taken, just the dreaded mirror flap. Shut the power off and so far it has not returned.

K-3 + 60-250mm + Pentax battery grip + Sandisk Extreme SDXC cards + Pentax brand batteries. Owned for six months without a hitch.

I *DO* think it had something to do with the fact that the camera might have been trying to drive the SR by over-compensating for the extreme motion of the ferry together with the long focal length. Who knows. Basically a random-like software bug by my estimate.

Michael