[MJKoski]

Bump! Any other got their K-1 serviced and did it get fixed? Currently waiting for black band fix and running around with the same loaner unit as before.

[JBox]

I have a minor update on this. I sent mine in last week and Precision received it on Thursday. It went into "In Repair" status right away. They also called me on Friday to let me know they had it and that the repair would be covered under the warranty. I checked it just now, and it is "Repair is on hold, waiting for parts." And below it says "Parts Ordered". This doesn't really seem unexpected to me. At least it would seem they are taking the issue seriously. I am assuming this status either means they have sent it to Japan, or they are waiting on getting the calibration program from Ricoh.

[MJKoski]

I am still waiting mine back from second service round. First one took 8 days total and now it has been over 2 weeks and still nothing. I wrote a clear note for the service people that "do not send it back until it has really been fixed". Maybe it went to japan.

[mir156]

I have a minor update on this. I sent mine in last week and Precision received it on Thursday. It went into "In Repair" status right away. They also called me on Friday to let me know they had it and that the repair would be covered under the warranty. I checked it just now, and it is "Repair is on hold, waiting for parts." And below it says "Parts Ordered". This doesn't really seem unexpected to me. At least it would seem they are taking the issue seriously. I am assuming this status either means they have sent it to Japan, or they are waiting on getting the calibration program from Ricoh.

They received my unit 5 weeks ago and I still can't have mine back.

I have done a bunch of longer exposures and I have not seen any white noise in any of my real world images since the fix.

[JBox]

They received my unit 5 weeks ago and I still can't have mine back.

What status does it show as on their website? Have you received any other status updates from them?

I have done a bunch of longer exposures and I have not seen any white noise in any of my real world images since the fix.

That is very good to hear.

[derekkite]

Here is an example of Pixel shifted ISO 3200 image, 30 seconds, +30C temp, no LENR. An old abandoned ship engine room. Part of my Skeleton-project.



100% crop from original color image



--

Then, an example that 5Dsr which was deemed bad by some well-known elite photographer, produces spectacular results @ ISO100, 593 seconds, no LENR, -10C temp, pushed 0.8EV.



100% crop



K-1 may or may not work better in cold. It remains to be seen. So far it looks to be working like A7R2 which fails in hot conditions and works nicely in sub-zero conditions. Go have a look at my gallery: mjkoski.1g.fi

What I explained is 100% true and self tested. I have used every top end DSLR-system there is during the recent years and all Sony A7x variants for as long they have been available. Among those, K-1 only ranks about average in IQ when not using PS. I will introduce a field review of K-1 shortly.

What are you using for processing?

[MJKoski]

Processing of what exactly? Lightroom in general. But that does not matter in this case as my unit was called to service due to real problem.

I got large catalogs from recent years of shooting and LR has to work with my files. Maybe Capture One is better but more clumsy in workflow.

[derekkite]

Processing of what exactly? Lightroom in general. But that does not matter in this case as my unit was called to service due to real problem.

I got large catalogs from recent years of shooting and LR has to work with my files. Maybe Capture One is better but more clumsy in workflow.

White dots are usually an indication of an out of range reading when reading from raw. How specific software algorithms deal with a rather common issue is of interest. Likely the settings used for other camera bodies optimize those sensors. I haven't been impressed with Lightroom when dealing with photos out of its range.

Every camera body I've gotten requires tweaking of post processing. Pentax raws are able to be quite raw. So sharpen up on your post processing.

The white dots are color noise of kind. ACR/Lightroom makes white dots of them by removing the color. It is like stuck pixels in red, green and blue. Normal color noise is no problem but these "stuck pixels" are. The fix made to the sensor works great with this problem.

[MJKoski]

Well, again, it was uncalibrated unit which did that. It does not happen with my loaner body now in use. What is broken is broken.

[mir156]

What status does it show as on their website? Have you received any other status updates from them?


That is very good to hear.

A month ago it showed "parts ordered" and they emailed me on Oct 5th that the parts came and I should expect to have my camera in 5-7 business days. However nothing happened since then.

[MJKoski]

All right. I got the body back from 2nd service round. Things got interesting.

This is again the loaner:


This is the "fixed" unit:


Quick look tells that banding has been nearly fixed BUT now this unit produces darker picture than the loaner at exact same settings. How can this be? 1st service round reported that "sensor was calibrated" and now it said that "adjusted AND calibrated". This is not good. It seems some units cannot be calibrated properly with software and there might be hardware level issues.

All right. I got the body back from 2nd service round. Things got interesting.

This is again the loaner:


This is the "fixed" unit:


Quick look tells that banding has been nearly fixed BUT now this unit produces darker picture than the loaner at exact same settings. How can this be? 1st service round reported that "sensor was calibrated" and now it said that "adjusted AND calibrated". This is not good. It seems some units cannot be calibrated properly with software and there might be hardware level issues.

Looks pretty much the same now from where I am sitting. Any real life test image?

[MJKoski]

Hard to compare right now with real life images as I left the loaner to the shop few hours ago. We took those images and wondered why there is notable difference. Talks continue with the service and I want to see where this goes. I'll go take few long exposures to see how it works now.

Does your calibrated unit also produce darker picture?

In case you want to compare, those are taken @ ISO51200, 30 seconds and under thick dark cloth. Boosted in LR +2EV, all noise control disabled, same settings copied to both images and then exported out as JPG. Other LR settings: Linear curve, Adobe standard profile, 6600K & +12 magenta tint.