[tomO2013]

It's an amazing camera. If you are planning to use for work, I'd either have a really good relationship with your dealer OR wait to see how this shakes out for others on the grip and mirror problem (faulty batch? Most important thing is how ricoh respond).

If you are not using for work I'd jump right in

[awscreo]

It's an amazing camera. If you are planning to use for work, I'd either have a really good relationship with your dealer OR wait to see how this shakes out for others on the grip and mirror problem (faulty batch? Most important thing is how ricoh respond).

If you are not using for work I'd jump right in

Let's say - I'm hoping to use it for work, even if to pay for more gear later on)

[rcolman]

I also had to go through THREE bodies to get a good one. The third one is good, but marginal good.

My issue was inability to achieve critical infinity focus on manual (not autofocus).

I really like the camera otherwise ...

[Rico]

I also had to go through THREE bodies to get a good one. The third one is good, but marginal good.

My issue was inability to achieve critical infinity focus on manual (not autofocus).

I really like the camera otherwise ...

rcolman how is the inability to achieve critical infinity manual focus the fault of the camera? You sent back to bodies for this?

tom02013 sent back one camera for dust in the viewfinder. The other bodies they sent back I am not sure what the problem they had for sending them back they are so busy supporting anyone who posts something negative about the K-1. It is kind of odd that tom02013 has been a member since March 2016 has made 135 posts and has 106 likes. That must make them the highest liked per post Pentaxforums member and they have already switched to Canon.

[tomO2013]

om02013 sent back one camera for dust in the viewfinder. The other bodies they sent back I am not sure what the problem they had for sending them back they are so busy supporting anyone who posts something negative about the K-1. It is kind of odd that tom02013 has been a member since March 2016 has made 135 posts and has 106 likes. That must make them the highest liked per post Pentaxforums member and they have already switched to Canon.

Body 1 went back for dust in the view finder and dust stuck to the sensor that could not shift with a blower. It's not that big a deal. I've had similar with a D750 that arrived in a similar manner previously. It happens to every manufacturer.

Body 2 simply had what I consider to be a misaligned focus sensor (described earlier on page 1) - unable to focus DFA* 70-200, unable to focus 24-70 or 150-450 accurately after focus tune. The camera store confirmed and replaced with a third body.

Body 3 had much better focus performance but the issue with the sticking mirror as shown in the video that I provided on page 1. I was shooting a wedding when this occurred, thankfully I have a K3ii backup that has since become my primary.

With respect to commenting on my join date - March, and my likes per post as a community member here. I don't really feel that It's something that I need to defend or loose sleep over.
FWIW - I still shoot Pentax, I have a K3ii with either a 31mm or 77mm permanently welded to the thing and I shoot it daily. It's a great camera. I'm not married to a particular brand, I simply care about creating beatiful images. I do enjoy the Pentax community here who I regularly find to be very kind, helpful, open minded and pragmatic.
The tone of this thread is intended to promote those values (without diminishing your choice to buy a K1) but in the context of assisting others who may have experienced similar quality control issues and giving something back to the community in the form of useful information - PDF's on erratic focus tune, video demonstrating sticking mirror - that may help others get a positive resolution from either Ricoh or their dealer.
I'm not a brand jumper bashing for the sake of it. Put yourself in my shoes, you are shooting a wedding and mirror starts to stick on a body, you would want a resolution.

[Rico]

Body 1 went back for dust in the view finder and dust stuck to the sensor that could not shift with a blower. It's not that big a deal. I've had similar with a D750 that arrived in a similar manner previously. It happens to every manufacturer.

Body 2 simply had what I consider to be a misaligned focus sensor (described earlier on page 1) - unable to focus DFA* 70-200, unable to focus 24-70 or 150-450 accurately after focus tune. The camera store confirmed and replaced with a third body.

Body 3 had much better focus performance but the issue with the sticking mirror as shown in the video that I provided on page 1. I was shooting a wedding when this occurred, thankfully I have a K3ii backup that has since become my primary.

With respect to commenting on my join date - March, and my likes per post as a community member here. I don't really feel that It's something that I need to defend or loose sleep over.
FWIW - I still shoot Pentax, I have a K3ii with either a 31mm or 77mm permanently welded to the thing and I shoot it daily. It's a great camera. I'm not married to a particular brand, I simply care about creating beatiful images. I do enjoy the Pentax community here who I regularly find to be very kind, helpful, open minded and pragmatic.
The tone of this thread is intended to promote those values (without diminishing your choice to buy a K1) but in the context of assisting others who may have experienced similar quality control issues and giving something back to the community in the form of useful information - PDF's on erratic focus tune, video demonstrating sticking mirror - that may help others get a positive resolution from either Ricoh or their dealer.
I'm not a brand jumper bashing for the sake of it. Put yourself in my shoes, you are shooting a wedding and mirror starts to stick on a body, you would want a resolution.

I don't see what problem you have? If your dealer gave you a camera that has a faulty mirror/shutter take it back to them for a replacement or Ricoh will fix it or replace it under warranty.

If you want to be taken serious as a pro I would suggest always having two camera bodies the client is expecting images from regardless of the brand you shoot.

[tomO2013]

I don't see what problem you have? If your dealer gave you a camera that has a faulty mirror/shutter take it back to them for a replacement or Ricoh will fix it or replace it under warranty.

If you want to be taken serious as a pro I would suggest always having two camera bodies the client is expecting images from regardless of the brand you shoot.

I don't see what problem you have? If your dealer gave you a camera that has a faulty mirror/shutter take it back to them for a replacement or Ricoh will fix it or replace it under warranty.

Hi Rico,

Anytime gear fails in a professional setting it can impact revenue, reputation etc...
The ability to bring the camera back to a store (in this case I got excellent Pentax after-sales support from McBain camera) for a replacement is irrelevant to a client if a key moment has been missed during the wedding ceremony on account of faulty mis-firing gear - this is a brand agnostic situation.

In this case I had a backup body K3ii with me but it was fitted with the 16-50 2.8. To swap lenses across bodies (70-200 onto the K3ii) in the moment of a groom putting a ring on his brides finger would have resulted in even more missed shots.

Hopefully you can see why after replacing 2 other bodies I had hoped that a third body would not cause me any further difficulties.

I hope that you can also see the value in this thread from a consumers perspective - let me be clear, I am not a random Pentax basher with no rhyme or reason!

I do really like the K1, but I've been frustrated issues that thankfully have not been specific to the bodies I received as validated by others in this thread (loose grips, erratic focus, sticking mirrors). This may indicate a wider production QC beyond a single camera unit - possibly a dodgy batch??!?

Anyway again, I'll be sticking around and happily shooting my K3ii in the mean time

Best regards,

Tom.

[Rico]

tom02013, I don't see your point. Gear fails. If your revenue and reputation is being impacted it is the way you are running your business that is doing so.

There are over 65,000 PentaxForums members. There are a handful of members having problems with K-1. Not indicative of some wide spread Quality Control issue as your thread implies.

[carolina_sky]

tom02013, I don't see your point. Gear fails. If your revenue and reputation is being impacted it is the way you are running your business that is doing so.

There are over 65,000 PentaxForums members. There are a handful of members having problems with K-1. Not indicative of some wide spread Quality Control issue as your thread implies.

Normally I wouldn't get involved in this, but I am very sympathetic to his point. Based on the fact that he's bringing a backup, he's very aware that gear fails. When the same gear (K-1) has demonstrated to him that it fails repeatedly, why would he continue to go with that gear? If I were him and that were my experience (and I had the money), I would immediately look to try another system. In fact, if I was a pro, I simply would not adopt a brand new model from any manufacturer as my primary shooting camera, being a gearhead I would love to try it out in low risk situations. But many, if not most, new models have teething issue (Nikon D600?) and I wouldn't want to risk my business and reputation on unproven gear.

[Class A]

When the same gear (K-1) has demonstrated to him that it fails repeatedly, why would he continue to go with that gear?

He would continue to keep that gear because he is fully aware of the fact that he is dealing with a defect of a K-1 copy, not an issue of the K-1 design.

Is it great that he had to go through three bodies and hasn't found one that was free of defects?
No, absolutely not.
This shouldn't happen and I agree that it is good to post about such issues (without blowing them out of proportion, of course).

Does it make sense to keep a separate line of equipment (camera + backup camera + lenses + accessories) just because it would have taken a fourth attempt to get a K-1 copy that is fine?
AFAIC, that does not make much sense either.

Now tomO2013 has his own level of patience and may just have lost confidence in Ricoh. That's fine and I respect his decision. Personally, though, it does not strike me as a very rational decision. To me, it would seem to be feasible to keep the alternative (Canon) gear until a good K-1 copy has been obtained. From that point onwards a significant amount of money invested in the alternative gear could be made available as investment capital or profit.

It would have been a different story if the K-1's AF hadn't been up to par, or the frame rate too slow, etc. Nothing one can do about it, except hope that the successor model may fix the shortcomings. But repairable defects of a copy should not be a reason to change one's plans about simplifying one's gear line up.

Perhaps there was never any intention to get rid of the Canon gear. In this case I apologise. I don't mean to attack tomO2013 's process/decisions, I'm merely stating that I don't quite understand them.

[grahame]

I shot for wedding only very occasionally. Last time I did, I brought K5II and KS2 with 16-50, 50-135, 55 and 35 macro (for rings, flowers, stuff on reception table etc). when I picked the K5II from a chair, the should strap was caught by the corner and the camera dropped from my hand onto grass, just about 1.5 ft high. camera was fine, but the zoom and AF on the lens were dead. -- all happened had nothing to do with pentax's quality, and I still managed to shoot with 16-50 when i need wide in manual model and didn't miss any shot for that reason, but customer still complained and said Canon should be able to handle it . Even he said it in a joking way, but you can tell.
I am not a pro, but I can totally understand tomO2013.

[stevebrot]

My issue was inability to achieve critical infinity focus on manual (not autofocus).

rcolman how is the inability to achieve critical infinity manual focus the fault of the camera? You sent back to bodies for this?

Critical manual focus at infinity using the optical viewfinder? I don't want to sound sarcastic, but good luck. I have a number of cameras on my shelf (25+ bodies in several different formats) and with one exception, none are capable of critical focus past about 150-200 yards/meters with lenses 200mm and shorter (for 35mm or APS-C).* That sole exception is my 4x5 view camera using a magnifying loupe directly on the ground glass. My recommendation has been and continues to be that critical focus is best attained on tripod using magnified live view.

That being said, it is a reasonable expectation to be able to do manual focus using the optical viewfinder on an SLR camera. If the viewfinder simply does not work for a user, then a return is entirely reasonable, though I would not hold that up as either a quality or design deficiency.A common and inexpensive workaround is to add a viewfinder magnifier to the mix. Other times, a different focus screen (not currently possible on the K-1) will help. If a user finds the viewfinder on a different brand easier to use, then purchase of that brand is the obvious option. In rcolman's case, the third body apparently works better for them and that is a good thing. Why the first two bodies had problems is difficult to assess since any issues with focus screen calibration would be evident at both near and far focus.


Steve

* Expectations regarding critical infinity focus is a recurring topic on this site and one that is sort of difficult to pin down. Often enough, the user's post describes a pattern of softness for distant landscapes when evaluated at full resolution. Causes are varied and fall loosely into a few broad categories: camera motion, lens not sharp at taking aperture/focal length, defective/maladjusted lens, atmospheric conditions (temperature gradients, water vapor, particulates), and/or missed focus due to maladjusted viewfinder diopter, poor user vision, or short focus throw in the near infinity range.

[RainMan]

Originally posted by Tas Is your description above what is being shown in the photo by 'gryhnd' in the sixth post down on this thread page? Post K-1 bugs/issues (feedback for Ricoh) - Page 18 - PentaxForums.com
If this is what you've seen, then yes I've had this problem, and I mostly experience it when pressing live view when the drive mode is set to mirror lock up; though not exclusively as I've had it occur whilst in other drove modes. When it's happened to me the mirror is down in live view instead of flipping up and it looks just like the image in that thread.
I'd certainly like to hear if you've got the same issue or something different please.
Tas

Yes that is exactly the behaviour I'm seeing - and it has happened a number times when I least wanted it to act up.

I just purchased a "Used" K1, discovered the mirror issue yesterday in the midst of a client shoot. Actually, the client and I discovered it simultaneously, they were over my shoulder looking at LV for compositional decisions. "Wow, what happened to your camera?", "Hell if I know". Did not see that coming. LV button a few times, back to normal, three frames later, the behavior repeats, for the entire afternoon. Any success with other Forum members getting Pentax to resolve the issue?

Cheers,

RM-

[tomO2013]

I just purchased a "Used" K1, discovered the mirror issue yesterday in the midst of a client shoot. Actually, the client and I discovered it simultaneously, they were over my shoulder looking at LV for compositional decisions. "Wow, what happened to your camera?", "Hell if I know". Did not see that coming. LV button a few times, back to normal, three frames later, the behavior repeats, for the entire afternoon. Any success with other Forum members getting Pentax to resolve the issue?

Cheers,

RM-

This happened to me a number of times - and ultimately (due to the high demand for the K1 at the time) Ricoh could not provide another body. With a wedding shoot coming up I couldn't afford to wait and simply returned the camera for a refund. By that time I had gone through 3 bodies (likely all from an initial faulty batch).

[RainMan]

This happened to me a number of times - and ultimately (due to the high demand for the K1 at the time) Ricoh could not provide another body. With a wedding shoot coming up I couldn't afford to wait and simply returned the camera for a refund. By that time I had gone through 3 bodies (likely all from an initial faulty batch).

Thanks for the follow up. I just spoke with Pentax, then Precision. I will provide all details as my experience moves forward.

Cheers,

RM-