[Adam]

I spoke with a friend of mine and he said that it could have been related to the fact that I used only the alkaline batteries which were inserted in the battery grip and because they were almost discharged. Yesterday I charged my genuine battery and I started testing Af-C and shooting in burst mode. I took almost 700 shots with those settings and the camera worked flawlessly.

Good that you mentioned this, because it's almost certainly the cause of the issue. When your battery voltage is low, the camera can behave unpredictably. Unfortunately, Pentax hasn't perfected the way it powers the camera through the grip, so your camera can crash or simply die if either the batteries in the grip or in the body are very low.

Adam
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[biz-engineer]

Good that you mentioned this, because it's almost certainly the cause of the issue. When your battery voltage is low, the camera can behave unpredictably. Unfortunately, Pentax hasn't perfected the way it powers the camera through the grip, so your camera can crash or simply die if either the batteries in the grip or in the body are very low.

It's hard for any camera to correctly indicate the amount of charge remaining in a set of battery, especially when battery to grip contacts are spoiled by fingers. When contacts are not clean, the DC voltage is still Ok with no load current (so the camera is still powered correctly) but when in operation the voltage temporarily drops below min level. From design standpoint, Pentax could have increased the size of decoupling power supply cap (or add an extra decoupling cap inside the grip, at the expense of size) or use faster DC-DC converter (if there is one...). But often, cleaning battery contacts with degreaser helps a lot to get the most out of batteries.

[ToniS]

I'm new to this forum. I'm from Italy and bought the K-3 II from Germany since I didn't find it in Italy for now.
I've the same problem when turning off the camera. This not enough, after about 1000 shots the camera turned automatically off (through auto-power-off) and there was no way to turn it on. Only removing and reputting in battery solved the problem. And this problem continues to persist. Form yesterday after taking some short video all internal LEDs seem to by died.

[Adam]

I'm new to this forum. I'm from Italy and bought the K-3 II from Germany since I didn't find it in Italy for now.
I've the same problem when turning off the camera. This not enough, after about 1000 shots the camera turned automatically off (through auto-power-off) and there was no way to turn it on. Only removing and reputting in battery solved the problem. And this problem continues to persist. Form yesterday after taking some short video all internal LEDs seem to by died.

Definitely get your camera exchanged ASAP.

Adam
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[Greenadonis]

I can say i received my K3 II yesterday and mine too out of the box does't turn off once you turn the off switch to off. You are still able to take photos, access menus etc etc. Mine got returned yesterday afternoon and they are sending me out another one which should arrive today. Hopefully the 2nd model will be working. It could be that Pentax need to do an emergency firmware update. Once bitten twice shy. I am now wary the next model might do the same. You'd have thought before launching the camera originally that they would have noticed the problem with some of the cameras. Fingers crossed all will be well!!!!!

[Mikesul]

Sorry to hear people are still having problems. I also received my K-3ii yesterday but, so far,there have been no problems at all. I took a couple of dozen photos in various settings including pixel shift and with GPS enabled. I pointedly turned it on and off several times and also enabled and disabled the GPS several times - everything operated smoothly. I did wait until I was outside under the open sky to turn on GPS for the first time. It locked on very quickly. So it does seem that only a few cameras have been affected. Manufacture date 4-30-2015.

EDIT: I also calibrated the GPS before I used it or touched the GPS button.

[Greenadonis]

Replacement camera arrived today, and, touch wood, all seems to be working well. I will keep my fingers crossed that it will remain working properly..

[MyTZuS]

After reading this thread, I will hold off on the K3 II & wait for the FF. Sheesh. Good thing other camera's don't have WR like Pentax...

[vietnam74]

I received my K3 II last week from gadgetcircuit.com and everything is running great. No firmware bug or GPS bug that people has seen.

[pastorbbc]

got my first one from Amazon and it had both issues . . Got my second on from B&H last Friday and it has been great.

[Adam]

Good thing other camera's don't have WR like Pentax...

What? Most DSLR makers have WR gear.

[rawr]

Most DSLR makers have WR gear.

But there seem to be lots of variation in how they define it. Nikon says the D610 and D750 are WR bodies, for example, but the practical difference between their WR and K-3 WR is huge.

[Adam]

But there seem to be lots of variation in how they define it. Nikon says the D610 and D750 are WR bodies, for example, but the practical difference between their WR and K-3 WR is huge.

I think Nikon just wants to avoid people getting their gear wet. Not necessarily a bad thing!

After reading this thread, I will hold off on the K3 II & wait for the FF.

There will be threads like this for the FF aswell...

[MyTZuS]

But there seem to be lots of variation in how they define it. Nikon says the D610 and D750 are WR bodies, for example, but the practical difference between their WR and K-3 WR is huge.

What about the new Sony RX10 II? (due in August) B&H is describing it as if its a Pentax with its durable magnesium alloy body & that it is weather resistant both water & dust.

I'll stop there, don't mean to hijack this thread. But I will leave it at this... I've been using Pentax since 1983, so its very sad for me to say the K5 IIs that I have now might be my last with Pentax.