[steve1307]

My K-7 hit the deck yesterday, It was inside a well padded top loader bag at the time so had a somewhat softened landing but went onto floorboards from waist height.

Everything is perfect except the front e-dial which is not functioning. It rotates fine and feels exactly the same so it's not apparently badly misaligned just the message isn't getting through.

I've never had any problem with dirty contacts and erratic e-dials, as noted elsewhere so I doubt getting it with some contact cleaner would help at all. Those other problems do indicate to me how sensitive the encoders are though.


The way I figure it I have 3 choices:

1) Send it for Repairs at $$$? / hour at CRK in Melbourne and be without it for however long it takes. 1 week or several weeks if new encoder board is needed.
There's about $50 just in freight in that exercise. I haven't asked CRK yet, but does anyone know their repair rates?
I could do without it for maybe a week but will be using it often for the rest of the year & January.


2) Leave it. The front encoder is somewhat "essential" in M mode and handy for ISO adjust in other modes. But.... as far as I can tell there is a work-around alternative for pretty much every function except for in Playback mode to compare 2 images side by side (who uses that?).
If the rear e-dial had died, that would be an absolute nightmare

I've just programmed the essentials to the rear dial in all modes except TAv & M. Often when I use M, I have a lens with apeture ring so i just set the shutter speed on the rear dial instead, and it doesn't slow me up at all.
Probably the greatest annoyance is on a DA lens I have to flick the mode dial to Av adjust apeture and then flick back to M. I can't think of another way to do this, maybe program the green button to Av shift?


3) Buy a cheap knock off D-BG4 grip for around $50.
My question is, Does the front e-dial on the grip operate totally independently of the camera's front e-dial or does it just "plug into" the same circuit? (which might be damaged?).
I'm tempted just to buy one BUT I dont need a grip for batter life or balance/handling issues and it wouldnt fit in my favourite bags anyway.



actually there's a 4th choice but there are financial issues involved.

4) Buy a K-5 and and then send the K-7 for repair and use it as as backup for MF lenses (i've got a Canon Ee-S focusing screen installed), or to use for 2 different prime focal lengths. (Last weekend I went out with only a DA15 and a DA*300 and swapped a lot.)

To be honest, this was kind of the long term plan and I wasnt banking on selling my K-7 anyway. I was hoping to wait & think about it after any K-5 sucessor may be announced (March?), then pick up a cheaper K-5 or the new K-?


Any other ideas? What would you do?

[hcc]

Within the last week, there was a discussion about about dial and some PF member came up with a simple trick which sometimes works to solve dial issue. I cannot find the discussion but it may be worth to check the PF as this would be a quick fix, if it works.

[steve1307]

SP-O-O-O-KY

On the very day of the the anouncement of the K-5 II and K-5 IIs my K-7 front e-dial magically started working again.

Hooray! I can use "M mode" properly again !

Maybe my K-7 was getting scared that she'd be replaced and shelved.


It's been completely dead for 11months and 10,000+ shots and suddenly it came back to life and worked flawlessy all last week on my "photo holiday" in the Outback.

2000+ shots in 5days with too many lens changes and 2000km of overland travelling.

That reminds me, I can change from a DA15 to 100macro whilst standing in a dry creek bed without raising my hearbeat but unforetunately (inevitably) I did manage to get a couple of dust specs on the sensor.

Anyone got any tips on how to best clean the sensor?
I'm willing to give it a go myself unless having it done professionally is a simple drop-off and pickup or while-u-wait thing.
I dont wait to be sending my camera away.

There's half a dozen small specs but the really nasty two on the centre right side of frame that look like pieces of gumtree ( @ f32) are visible in the sky at most apertures.