[goldenzebra]

Hi All,

Today I have some strange issue with my K20D, which I don't know if it's related to the camera or to the SDHC card.
I've bought me a new (old) SMC Pentax-A 35-70 (very nice piece of glass), so I spend some time with it at the last few days.
Today I took some pictures with it (indoor using the Metz 58), and at some point, after taking a picture of my daughter, I switch to the playback mode, so the last picture I took was shown, and then the camera just froze! I've tried to go to other photo, press the shutter button, tried to cancel the playback mode – nada, nothing works, even the dials seams to do nothing.
I switched the camera off, and I saw that the photo stay on the screen for about 2 second and then the LCD turn off (maybe there was some energy left, so no problem).
I took the battery out, wait a minute or two, switch the camera on, go to playback mode and again - the camera get stuck! So switching it off again, then on, taking some more pictures and go to the playback mode again – all was good, but when I paged through the photos, once I get to the picture that arise the issue – the camera froze again!
So again off-on the camera, going to playback mode (and see the last good picture), use the dial to enter to the multi-image display mode, select the 'bad' picture, delete it, and from then on I have no such issue.
The only action I didn't take was to take the card out and see if there is still the same problem.
The card is SanDisk SDHC class 2 4GB, the camera have the latest firmware.
Did any of you have the same problem? Is it a camera issue or, more likely, a crad issue?
Thanks,
Yaniv

[enoeske]

Sounds like a bad sector on the memory card. It could be failing.

[JeffJS]

I hope the photo of your daughter wasn't one of those once in a lifetime shots. Sounds like the card is heading south. Try reformatting it after you get your photos off of it (and start looking for a new card, this will only get worse if it's the card).

[goldenzebra]

Fortunately the picture that froze the camera was not one of a life time…
I've format the card, took some pictures with it, and so far there is no problem with it. In any case I'll buy another card, just in case, and will use the old one as a backup.
One note though – after reading the ETTR tutorial, and some threads about using the AF button instead of the shutter button I started to use the AF button, so after I got the issue with the stuck photo, I switched to the kit lens, and as I was worry about the camera failure I forgot to use the AF button, and get more worry why the hell the camera stop focusing… it took some photos and some heart beating until I realize that I should use the AF button…

[jamesm007]

Fortunately the picture that froze the camera was not one of a life time…
I've format the card, took some pictures with it, and so far there is no problem with it. In any case I'll buy another card, just in case, and will use the old one as a backup.
One note though – after reading the ETTR tutorial, and some threads about using the AF button instead of the shutter button I started to use the AF button, so after I got the issue with the stuck photo, I switched to the kit lens, and as I was worry about the camera failure I forgot to use the AF button, and get more worry why the hell the camera stop focusing… it took some photos and some heart beating until I realize that I should use the AF button…

Can't hurt to ask. Do you have the latest firmware. The last firmware fixed an issue with SD cards (affects several Pentax dSLRs) and a firmware was released not too long ago. I would make sure.

Link to your K20D firmware
Latest K20D Firmware Update : Software Downloads : PENTAX

[goldenzebra]

Can't hurt to ask. Do you have the latest firmware. The last firmware fixed an issue with SD cards (affects several Pentax dSLRs) and a firmware was released not too long ago. I would make sure.

Link to your K20D firmware
Latest K20D Firmware Update : Software Downloads : PENTAX

The firmware is up to date (as I mentioned at the first post).
For now there is no problem with the card, since I format it, but, as I said before, I'll buy a new one (they are so cheap), and save the old one as a backup.
Thanks any way!