K-70 Lockup experience

PhotoNomad0 · 09-04-2016, 04:46 AM

I had my K-70 lock up on me while shooting and just curious if anyone else has seen this. I was shooting pictures at a wedding and took a bunch of shots already. As people were coming down the isle, and at the moment the bride started coming down, the camera would not take a picture when the shutter was depressed. I was looking through the view-finder and could see a green rectangle, so it seemed that the camera was confirming the autofocus. I then checked the back screen. It was blank, and pushing the info and menu buttons would not turn on the display. In a panic I tried turning the camera off and back on, but still nothing was coming on outside the camera. At that point I thought of pulling out the battery. After reinserting it, it turned on and everything was working again. Unfortunately missed an important shot (to me that is - I was not the official photographer).

I checked the battery level, and it showed full. In fact I took shots for several more hours after that before changing batteries. So I don't think it was related to power level. The 64GB memory card was nearly empty. The memory card is fast saving images and I wasn't doing any fast shooting at the time. And the indicator light for saving images was not on.

So I am guessing it was a software bug (running firmware version 1.10) that caused the lockup. It happened just once in 950 shots, so it is not a huge problem for a new camera. There have been no other shooting issues that I have noticed. I am quite pleased with it. Only frustration is that I am waiting for Lightroom support for the camera model. Currently have to process high ISO images in DCU to get good results (it crashes often on Mac). By comparison, my K-7 had lots of issues when first released.

I had since thought that I should have used my old trusty K-5, but the auto-focusing is so much better on the K-70 with people in motion.

Last edited by PhotoNomad0; 09-04-2016 at 04:48 AM. Reason: typo

**csa** · 09-04-2016, 07:19 AM - **1 Like**

Just a suggestion; may it be your SD card? On the K3's there's been some (me included), using the SanDisk Ultra 32GB card, having the camera lock up, until the battery is removed/re-inserted. Formatting the card in the camera has stopped this from happening to me; but it's only been a few days, since the last lockup.

Alnjpn · 09-04-2016, 07:41 AM - **1 Like**

Just a +1 for the possibility of it being an SD card issue. Way back I had a couple of instances of lock up on my K30 with an older SD card where reinserting the battery solved the problem. Since changing to an ultra fast Transcend card the problem has disappeared. So might be worth trying a different card and see what happens.

D1N0 · 09-04-2016, 08:16 AM

A modern camera is a computer. No telling why it will lock up.

**FozzFoster** · 09-04-2016, 09:04 AM

Was there a chance that you had a self timer previously set and forgot to change shooting drives? That happens to me sometimes.

Adam · 09-04-2016, 09:39 AM

Originally posted by D1N0

A modern camera is a computer. No telling why it will lock up.

Yup, lock ups happen can happen now and then and they are generally harmless (though annoying!). Regularly formatting your card does seem to help reduce the risk.

Steve.Ledger · 09-04-2016, 11:59 AM

Originally posted by PhotoNomad0

Only frustration is that I am waiting for Lightroom support for the camera model.

What's the problem with Lightroom? Are you shooting RAW as .dng??

PhotoNomad0 · 09-04-2016, 01:59 PM

Originally posted by Steve.Ledger

What's the problem with Lightroom? Are you shooting RAW as .dng??

I switched to using the DNG format after discovering that Lightroom CC (currently version 2015.6.1) would not import the PEF files.

High ISO DNGs (6400 and higher) imported into LR look very grainy, have washed out colors, and color balance seems quite off. Currently LR does not yet have Pentax K-70 support. So instead it uses the profile embedded in the DNG file (thanks to @stevebrot for that info). But then I uses the Pentax Digital Camera Utility to convert to TIFF-16bit format and imported that into LR. When I do side by side comparison in LR, I see better color, low noise and better image detail in the TIFF image (may be a bit over-sharpened). So it looks like the DCU is doing a lot of processing for the higher ISO images.

---------- Post added 09-04-16 at 02:05 PM ----------

Originally posted by csa

Just a suggestion; may it be your SD card? On the K3's there's been some (me included), using the SanDisk Ultra 32GB card, having the camera lock up, until the battery is removed/re-inserted. Formatting the card in the camera has stopped this from happening to me; but it's only been a few days, since the last lockup.

I was using a PNY 64GB card that I had been using for years with my K-5. I did have to reformat it in the K-70 to get it to use the card. Maybe it is card and timing related. I will switch to another card to see if the problem occurs again.

**csa** · 09-04-2016, 02:12 PM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by csa "Quote Just a suggestion; may it be your SD card? On the K3's there's been some (me included), using the SanDisk Ultra 32GB card, having the camera lock up, until the battery is removed/re-inserted. Formatting the card in the camera has stopped this from happening to me; but it's only been a few days, since the last lockup."

"I was using a PNY 64GB card that I had been using for years with my K-5. I did have to reformat it in the K-70 to get it to use the card. Maybe it is card and timing related. I will switch to another card to see if the problem occurs again"

Best of luck, let us know if it happens again. Really puts a scare in you when it happens, doesn't it?

Steve.Ledger · 09-04-2016, 02:16 PM

Originally posted by PhotoNomad0

I switched to using the DNG format after discovering that Lightroom CC (currently version 2015.6.1) would not import the PEF files.

High ISO DNGs (6400 and higher) imported into LR look very grainy, have washed out colors, and color balance seems quite off.

That would seem to me to be the best import scenario. RAW is RAW and should not be pre processed. The whole point of having a RAW developer?

Quote:

Currently LR does not yet have Pentax K-70 support. .

Specifically what 'support' does it need? As far as I know, LR only needs to be aware of the newer .pef format.

Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand and perhaps weed out myths

PhotoNomad0 · 09-04-2016, 05:37 PM

Originally posted by Steve.Ledger

Specifically what 'support' does it need? As far as I know, LR only needs to be aware of the newer .pef format.

Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand and perhaps weed out myths

Here is some information from Adobe about camera support Troubleshoot Adobe Camera Raw Compatibility Photoshop Lightroom. The K-70 is not currently in the list. That explains why LR will not import the PEF files from the K-70. As far as the K-70 DNG files, without LR support the only option you are left with is the "embedded" profile choice under camera calibration (no "adobe standard" profile). I am hoping that the "adobe standard" profile will have much better image quality.

Perhaps it is a vain hope that when LR supports the camera, that the image quality will be better with high ISO images. It is even possible that there is some deficiency in the embedded DNG profiles created by Pentax. The only thing I know for sure is that for now DCU is doing a much better job at rendering high ISO images than LR. It is discouraging to think that high ISO images taken with my K-5 look better. I do recall that in the past when I would get a new Pentax model, that I had difficulty in LR until the model was supported.

**jatrax** · 09-04-2016, 07:34 PM

Originally posted by PhotoNomad0

I am hoping that the "adobe standard" profile will have much better image quality.

This has not always been the case. On some cameras the 'embedded' profile was noticeably better than the 'Adobe Standard', at least to me. One reason why I started building my own. At any rate, Adobe generally provides support for new cameras within a month or so.

Another option might be to try the DNG converter and see if it produces a better result. You could shoot in DNG on the camera and then use the converter to convert to DNG. (I know it sounds weird) This has in some cases in the past provided a temporary solution until Adobe released the profile for the camera. You could also try shooting in PEF and see if it will ingest those but I'll guess probably not.
Adobe Digital Negative Converter 9.x

Steve.Ledger · 09-04-2016, 10:47 PM

I still don't understand what specifically it is about the K-70 that Lightroom has to understand/calibrate. Lens calibration, ok that's different and support new cameras RAW formats ok. But what 'camera specific calibration' could there be? RAW is [and ought to be] pure data from the sensor which hasn't gone through any image pre processing. It should not matter which camera spat it onto the card. You have the RAW developer [Lightroom] to develop it to your tastes. That the WB seems off is subjective and well there is no WB applied in-camera, because it's RAW and that's what you have Lightroom for, to fix it. That it seems grainy means that no NR has yet been applied, this is good. I don't don't want any NR applied before I bring photos into a RAW developer, NR should not be applied to RAW in-camera in any case otherwise it's no longer RAW is it?. If this pre processing of RAW is what you mean by camera calibration, then why on earth would you want it?

The main point is as said by Adobe at the link you provided:
"The difficulty with supporting Adobe Camera Raw plug-in updates for legacy versions of Photoshop and Lightroom is that camera manufacturers are creating new proprietary raw formats each time they come out with a new camera—and new cameras are coming out faster and in greater volume."

As Pentax enable saving RAW as DNG, I can't think of any valid reason to save RAW as .PEF.

noelpolar · 09-04-2016, 11:17 PM

On the lightroom issue.... sounds to me like you need to set up a "preset" that you apply at the import stage... effectively that is mostly what adobe does with their camera support.... you just don't see the sliders offset.

PhotoNomad0 · 09-05-2016, 04:42 AM

In trying to find information about what camera calibration profile actually do in LR, I haven't found a lot. There is a separate thread (https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/328228-k-70-ligh...uestion-2.html) where @stevebrot shares that it only contains tone curves and color mapping information.

I shot a bunch of pictures at a wedding using auto ISO, I have gotten used to a workflow in LR just applying white balance and exposure setting (along with match total exposure) to a set of pictures taken with same lighting, which gets the images quite close to each other. What I see is that on the K-70 I have to adjust the white balance ISO 6400 images differently. So my take is that the DNG embedded color profiles are off for ISO 6400 relative to lower ISOs. Using the white balance selector on two similar images taken at ISO 3200 and ISO 6400, the temp goes from 3050 to 3600 and tint from -6 to -19. There is also a shift in brightness. My take away is that for now I will have to handle ISO 6400+ differently from now on in LR. Maybe that will change later when "adobe standard" camera profiles are released. Or there is a possibility that Pentax will make some embedded profile tweaks in future firmware releases.

09-04-2016, 04:46 AM	#1
PhotoNomad0 Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 27	K-70 Lockup experience I had my K-70 lock up on me while shooting and just curious if anyone else has seen this. I was shooting pictures at a wedding and took a bunch of shots already. As people were coming down the isle, and at the moment the bride started coming down, the camera would not take a picture when the shutter was depressed. I was looking through the view-finder and could see a green rectangle, so it seemed that the camera was confirming the autofocus. I then checked the back screen. It was blank, and pushing the info and menu buttons would not turn on the display. In a panic I tried turning the camera off and back on, but still nothing was coming on outside the camera. At that point I thought of pulling out the battery. After reinserting it, it turned on and everything was working again. Unfortunately missed an important shot (to me that is - I was not the official photographer). I checked the battery level, and it showed full. In fact I took shots for several more hours after that before changing batteries. So I don't think it was related to power level. The 64GB memory card was nearly empty. The memory card is fast saving images and I wasn't doing any fast shooting at the time. And the indicator light for saving images was not on. So I am guessing it was a software bug (running firmware version 1.10) that caused the lockup. It happened just once in 950 shots, so it is not a huge problem for a new camera. There have been no other shooting issues that I have noticed. I am quite pleased with it. Only frustration is that I am waiting for Lightroom support for the camera model. Currently have to process high ISO images in DCU to get good results (it crashes often on Mac). By comparison, my K-7 had lots of issues when first released. I had since thought that I should have used my old trusty K-5, but the auto-focusing is so much better on the K-70 with people in motion. Last edited by PhotoNomad0; 09-04-2016 at 04:48 AM. Reason: typo

09-04-2016, 09:39 AM	#6
Adam Administrator Site Webmaster Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Arizona Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 51,608	Originally posted by D1N0 A modern camera is a computer. No telling why it will lock up. Yup, lock ups happen can happen now and then and they are generally harmless (though annoying!). Regularly formatting your card does seem to help reduce the risk. Adam PentaxForums.com Webmaster (Site Usage Guide \| Site Help \| My Photography) PentaxForums.com server and development costs are user-supported. You can help cover these costs by donating or purchasing one of our Pentax eBooks. Or, buy your photo gear from our affiliates, Adorama, B&H Photo, KEH, or Topaz Labs, and get FREE Marketplace access - click here to see how! Trusted Pentax retailers:

09-04-2016, 01:59 PM	#8
PhotoNomad0 Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 27 Original Poster	Using DNGs in Lightroom Originally posted by Steve.Ledger What's the problem with Lightroom? Are you shooting RAW as .dng?? I switched to using the DNG format after discovering that Lightroom CC (currently version 2015.6.1) would not import the PEF files. High ISO DNGs (6400 and higher) imported into LR look very grainy, have washed out colors, and color balance seems quite off. Currently LR does not yet have Pentax K-70 support. So instead it uses the profile embedded in the DNG file (thanks to @stevebrot for that info). But then I uses the Pentax Digital Camera Utility to convert to TIFF-16bit format and imported that into LR. When I do side by side comparison in LR, I see better color, low noise and better image detail in the TIFF image (may be a bit over-sharpened). So it looks like the DCU is doing a lot of processing for the higher ISO images. ---------- Post added 09-04-16 at 02:05 PM ---------- Originally posted by csa Just a suggestion; may it be your SD card? On the K3's there's been some (me included), using the SanDisk Ultra 32GB card, having the camera lock up, until the battery is removed/re-inserted. Formatting the card in the camera has stopped this from happening to me; but it's only been a few days, since the last lockup. I was using a PNY 64GB card that I had been using for years with my K-5. I did have to reformat it in the K-70 to get it to use the card. Maybe it is card and timing related. I will switch to another card to see if the problem occurs again.

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09-04-2016, 07:19 AM - 1 Like	#2
csa Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Montana mountains Posts: 10,133	Just a suggestion; may it be your SD card? On the K3's there's been some (me included), using the SanDisk Ultra 32GB card, having the camera lock up, until the battery is removed/re-inserted. Formatting the card in the camera has stopped this from happening to me; but it's only been a few days, since the last lockup.

09-04-2016, 07:41 AM - 1 Like	#3
Alnjpn Senior Member Join Date: May 2015 Location: Osaka Posts: 158	Just a +1 for the possibility of it being an SD card issue. Way back I had a couple of instances of lock up on my K30 with an older SD card where reinserting the battery solved the problem. Since changing to an ultra fast Transcend card the problem has disappeared. So might be worth trying a different card and see what happens.

09-04-2016, 08:16 AM	#4
D1N0 Pentaxian Join Date: May 2012 Location: --- Photos: Gallery Posts: 6,802	A modern camera is a computer. No telling why it will lock up.

09-04-2016, 09:04 AM	#5
FozzFoster Custom User Title Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Alberta Photos: Albums Posts: 6,808	Was there a chance that you had a self timer previously set and forgot to change shooting drives? That happens to me sometimes.

09-04-2016, 11:59 AM	#7
Steve.Ledger Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Far North Qld Posts: 3,301	Originally posted by PhotoNomad0 Only frustration is that I am waiting for Lightroom support for the camera model. What's the problem with Lightroom? Are you shooting RAW as .dng??

09-04-2016, 02:12 PM - 1 Like	#9
csa Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Montana mountains Posts: 10,133	Originally posted by csa "Quote Just a suggestion; may it be your SD card? On the K3's there's been some (me included), using the SanDisk Ultra 32GB card, having the camera lock up, until the battery is removed/re-inserted. Formatting the card in the camera has stopped this from happening to me; but it's only been a few days, since the last lockup." "I was using a PNY 64GB card that I had been using for years with my K-5. I did have to reformat it in the K-70 to get it to use the card. Maybe it is card and timing related. I will switch to another card to see if the problem occurs again" Best of luck, let us know if it happens again. Really puts a scare in you when it happens, doesn't it?

09-04-2016, 02:16 PM	#10
Steve.Ledger Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Far North Qld Posts: 3,301	Originally posted by PhotoNomad0 I switched to using the DNG format after discovering that Lightroom CC (currently version 2015.6.1) would not import the PEF files. High ISO DNGs (6400 and higher) imported into LR look very grainy, have washed out colors, and color balance seems quite off. That would seem to me to be the best import scenario. RAW is RAW and should not be pre processed. The whole point of having a RAW developer? Quote: Currently LR does not yet have Pentax K-70 support. . Specifically what 'support' does it need? As far as I know, LR only needs to be aware of the newer .pef format. Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand and perhaps weed out myths

09-04-2016, 05:37 PM	#11
PhotoNomad0 Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 27 Original Poster	Originally posted by Steve.Ledger Specifically what 'support' does it need? As far as I know, LR only needs to be aware of the newer .pef format. Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand and perhaps weed out myths Here is some information from Adobe about camera support Troubleshoot Adobe Camera Raw Compatibility Photoshop Lightroom. The K-70 is not currently in the list. That explains why LR will not import the PEF files from the K-70. As far as the K-70 DNG files, without LR support the only option you are left with is the "embedded" profile choice under camera calibration (no "adobe standard" profile). I am hoping that the "adobe standard" profile will have much better image quality. Perhaps it is a vain hope that when LR supports the camera, that the image quality will be better with high ISO images. It is even possible that there is some deficiency in the embedded DNG profiles created by Pentax. The only thing I know for sure is that for now DCU is doing a much better job at rendering high ISO images than LR. It is discouraging to think that high ISO images taken with my K-5 look better. I do recall that in the past when I would get a new Pentax model, that I had difficulty in LR until the model was supported.

09-04-2016, 07:34 PM	#12
jatrax Site Supporter Join Date: May 2010 Location: Washington Cascades Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,991	Originally posted by PhotoNomad0 I am hoping that the "adobe standard" profile will have much better image quality. This has not always been the case. On some cameras the 'embedded' profile was noticeably better than the 'Adobe Standard', at least to me. One reason why I started building my own. At any rate, Adobe generally provides support for new cameras within a month or so. Another option might be to try the DNG converter and see if it produces a better result. You could shoot in DNG on the camera and then use the converter to convert to DNG. (I know it sounds weird) This has in some cases in the past provided a temporary solution until Adobe released the profile for the camera. You could also try shooting in PEF and see if it will ingest those but I'll guess probably not. Adobe Digital Negative Converter 9.x

09-04-2016, 10:47 PM	#13
Steve.Ledger Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Far North Qld Posts: 3,301	I still don't understand what specifically it is about the K-70 that Lightroom has to understand/calibrate. Lens calibration, ok that's different and support new cameras RAW formats ok. But what 'camera specific calibration' could there be? RAW is [and ought to be] pure data from the sensor which hasn't gone through any image pre processing. It should not matter which camera spat it onto the card. You have the RAW developer [Lightroom] to develop it to your tastes. That the WB seems off is subjective and well there is no WB applied in-camera, because it's RAW and that's what you have Lightroom for, to fix it. That it seems grainy means that no NR has yet been applied, this is good. I don't don't want any NR applied before I bring photos into a RAW developer, NR should not be applied to RAW in-camera in any case otherwise it's no longer RAW is it?. If this pre processing of RAW is what you mean by camera calibration, then why on earth would you want it? The main point is as said by Adobe at the link you provided: "The difficulty with supporting Adobe Camera Raw plug-in updates for legacy versions of Photoshop and Lightroom is that camera manufacturers are creating new proprietary raw formats each time they come out with a new camera—and new cameras are coming out faster and in greater volume." As Pentax enable saving RAW as DNG, I can't think of any valid reason to save RAW as .PEF.

09-04-2016, 11:17 PM	#14
noelpolar Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: Goolwa, SA Photos: Gallery Posts: 4,310	On the lightroom issue.... sounds to me like you need to set up a "preset" that you apply at the import stage... effectively that is mostly what adobe does with their camera support.... you just don't see the sliders offset.

09-05-2016, 04:42 AM	#15
PhotoNomad0 Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 27 Original Poster	In trying to find information about what camera calibration profile actually do in LR, I haven't found a lot. There is a separate thread (https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/328228-k-70-ligh...uestion-2.html) where @stevebrot shares that it only contains tone curves and color mapping information. I shot a bunch of pictures at a wedding using auto ISO, I have gotten used to a workflow in LR just applying white balance and exposure setting (along with match total exposure) to a set of pictures taken with same lighting, which gets the images quite close to each other. What I see is that on the K-70 I have to adjust the white balance ISO 6400 images differently. So my take is that the DNG embedded color profiles are off for ISO 6400 relative to lower ISOs. Using the white balance selector on two similar images taken at ISO 3200 and ISO 6400, the temp goes from 3050 to 3600 and tint from -6 to -19. There is also a shift in brightness. My take away is that for now I will have to handle ISO 6400+ differently from now on in LR. Maybe that will change later when "adobe standard" camera profiles are released. Or there is a possibility that Pentax will make some embedded profile tweaks in future firmware releases.