[Wheatfield]

I appreciate your hard-earned experience and advice, but please recognize that I am NOT a wedding photographer. I'm a real estate pro. The stakes of a broken camera or a blown job exist in my business, but they are much lower than in yours. Reshoots or rescheduling are possible at minor inconvenience, compared to an event involving many guests gathering from all over. It's just not the same ball game, so I'll pass on your advice to maintain four identical cameras. For the record, I have four cameras, but only one is ideal for real estate work, using the lenses I prefer.

But let's not make this about me. I'd rather have us discuss whether a used camera with a Square Trade warranty might be a safer choice than even a new one from Pentax. If they are not maintaining an adequate stock of parts at their sole US repair source, a broken unit might linger there on the shelf for months even if under full factory warranty. In that case, I'd rather have Square Trade pay me for the camera, as the promise to do, so I could replace it quickly.

As long as none of your work has any sort of hard deadline, then no, back ups aren't especially important. I'm not shooting professionally any more, nothing I do has any sort of deadline, and so my single K1 body is just fine. If I break it, I might be inconvenienced, but I'm not going to be out any paying jobs,
I would think though, were I selling my house and my realtor told me it would be a month to six weeks before he could get pictures with my listing, I would be asking myself if I should use a different realtor.
Cameras are so good now that a used one from a couple of generations back should be just fine, though I would avoid the ones with the potentially bad aperture solenoid. No sense buying trouble.
Do remember that these days, most companies are having problems with their supply chains. I don't think I would treat the last year or so as normal with regard to companies having parts in stock, but I would make adjustments for it if my needs required me to do so..

---------- Post added Nov 8th, 2021 at 07:21 PM ----------

Is this the Wedding Photographers Forum? And I do have a spare camera- a K-3. I used it for backup, but the UWA lens I have isn't as wide as I wanted. And now I have two K1s, one in the shop.

If you only want advice from a particular genre of professional, perhaps you should have had an accepted shooters list accompany your post.
Or, accept the advice you are being given with a modicum of grace since you failed to mention what advice was acceptable in your original plea for help.
Or, accept that the next time you put out a plea for advice, it may fall on deaf ears.
.

[Wheatridger]

Still waiting for parts. Also I'm waiting for a replacement Theta Z1 that Precision offered me as an alternative to the $433 repair price of my old one. So Precision can't get a key K-1 part, and they can't get a new Theta within a month. I'll keep ya'll posted...

[Wheatridger]

For all who care, and some who don't, my K-1 came back from Precision today. I count 73 days that it took to get it repaired. The K-1 ll I got to cover for it works fine, so after I test the K-1, I'll offer it for sale here. Anybody need a backup, freshly serviced?

[cowlitzJim]

Glad your camera made it back! Hope it passes your inspections with flying colors (at least in Vivid mode).