Originally posted by tallytvguy This is all disappointing. I'm employed at a small cable TV channel and a lot of my work is with video cameras. I enjoy photography as a hobby but haven't had time to do a deep dive into digital photography technology. So, when Medex mentions taking the black image I shot and increasing it by +5eV, it's a little beyond me.
Is this a standard way of testing something? Medex mentions the green and purple lines are supposed to be homogenous -- I guess a link to a black image that looks right would help me. Medex also mentioned using another SD card -- that could make a difference?
+5ev is just raising the exposure presentation so things that looked black are shown that otherwise would be invisible. A working sensor black frame shouldn’t have any lines on it, though it might have small dots of color distributed randomly.
As for “standard way” maybe. It eliminated the image contribution and allowed us to see the sensor output without any worry over reflections and other image induced factors.
Originally posted by tallytvguy Jonathan Mac says the K7 sensors are the worst Pentax ever used…
If I recall the k20d and k-7 were early examples of CMOS sensors and represent the change from CCD sensors. As such there were growing pains.
Originally posted by tallytvguy …and that's shaking my faith in Pentax because I have a K50 that has the infamous black frame/aperture block failure, (I sent it to the company in California that fixes the problem and it cleared up for a while). I was happy with the iST D that I had, last I heard, it was continuing to work for the family member I gave it to.
If the sensor is awful, is there a fix/replacement, or do I just "eat" another bad Pentax, (I bought it used, thankfully). I've been cynical about Nikon and Canon because of the cost of trying to get into their good/better cameras and lenses but now I don't know what to think.
Repair of the camera is probably not an option. You can try a healing tool in post processing to remove the visible Lines.
All manufacturers have issues. But the k-7 is very old and it is hard to imagine expecting it to work without quirks forever. The k-5 and k-3 have been reliable for most people. But all brands have issues - features and prices should guide you.