[Torphoto]

Ok, it seems amazon refuses to send me another cam, so I'll send it back, with the grip and spare battery and stick to the K20D for now. I'll take the refund and wait to see if the issue goes away in a few months and try another K7 then, so now sigma 100-300, DA 300mm or 60-250?

[schmik]

Don't know if anyone is watching this thread still....... but I just tesed mine. Put into live-view for close to an hour. Played with video too. Shot a few images at high ISOs, some in focus, some out of focus on dark uniform subjects. Exif showed the camera temp to be 32deg C.

No green line or any colored line in any of the images.

I wanted to force the camera to display the thermometer warning but if it won't do it after 1 hour then it just won't do it at this ambient temperature.

I want to test it at higher temps but I am not real sure how at this time of year Down Unda.

I am interested as (in summer) mine will be used on 35deg C days, in the sun, shooting video and stills. I think it'll all be ok. She'll be right mate!


mike

[brecklundin]

Ok, it seems amazon refuses to send me another cam, so I'll send it back, with the grip and spare battery and stick to the K20D for now. I'll take the refund and wait to see if the issue goes away in a few months and try another K7 then, so now sigma 100-300, DA 300mm or 60-250?

This sort of issue has been a pattern from Amazon the past 6-months or so when dealing with higher cost items. Return too many and they will either refuse a replacement or accept the return for refund then cancel your account. There was a huge blow up over some issues for Kindle owners who had their accounts cancelled and then no longer had access to the books they bought on Amazon.

Long story short Amazon claimed a "software error" and reinstated an unknown number of accounts but given the public response from Amazon, someone somewhere made a rather stupid policy error which affected a pretty significant number of big spending customers. Google "amazon cancelled account" and you'll find a fair amount of info.

I mention it because here you are basically be told by Amazon it's your fault and then you have Pentax telling you to just send it to Amazon to have it replaced. I sense retailers are getting tired of being used as just an exchange center by many MFG's...why is Pentax not offering to make the swap themselves?

Hope Amazon does not make you the scape goat for the problem that belongs to HoyaTax. It's not as if you were asking for a refund (until now) but just an exchange. And it's not as if you are being "fussy" over anything, the thing should just work. I am assuming you asked to escalate the issue to the next tier of CS? It might be nice if you mentioned this to HoyaTax somehow also...though they might be having to tip-toe around retailers about now. Tough situation all around.

I have not had any higher dollar Amazon returns but their behavior in this area might relegate them to lower value items and I'll just stick with B&H, Adorama and a couple other vendors I have a history of good dealings with online for camera gear...they know exchanges are sort of part of the deal. I even liked my dealing with a couple of the popular Pentax eBay sellers from Canookia who were GREAT. I don't remember their names just now, it was the first time buying from them...one lens each...DA 35Ltd macro, 77ltd & 43ltd...the 50-135 I also bought from Amazon.

Bummer both your K7 had the problem. But at least you helped others out by explaining the issue...I thank you for that very much!

[falconeye]

Don't know if anyone is watching this thread still

8-most read thread in DSLR Discussion sub forum. Most read thread in the last week.

Put into live-view for close to an hour. Played with video too. [...] Exif showed the camera temp to be 32deg C.

If you shot the image right after 1 hour of active LV, then this would be interesting news. However, I doubt it as LV shuts off after 5 minutes or so. You would have to keep reactivating.

If after 1 hour of consecutive movie recording, you get EXIF showing 32°C, then we learned something: that the efficiency of sensor cooling varies a lot from one body to another. If ...

I consider a 15°C above ambient temperature to be normal right after 30 min of video recording. Note that the camera cools down quickly. Sometimes, in less than a minute.

---

Last edited by falconeye; 07-23-2009 at 05:42 AM.

[brecklundin]

Hey,

someone into overclocking needs to rig up a liquid cooling system for the K7. I mean you might only need to lug around a car battery to power it...

[schmik]

I used a freshly charged battery, sat the camera on a tripod and put it into liveview. I pointed it at the TV and started to read this long thread Every time that liveview turned off i put it back on within 10seconds. You can hear the mirror return even if you don't see the screen change. I was waiting for the temp warning on screen but it never appeared. It was definitely 1hr worth of liveview. I estimate it to be > 18deg C in my house. I am in shorts and light jumper sitting near the fireplace. Camera is in the same room.

So, it is possible that the sensor is at approx 15 more than ambient temp.

Unfortunately it is going to be hard to test in higher temps for quite a few months.

At what temp does the warning come on?

mike

[brecklundin]

gotta blow dryer? there is your heat source if you want to raise the ambient around the body...just be careful because some blow dryers can really crank up the heat!!

[Samsungian]

in USA Amazon.Com are now the company that fills Pentax USA Dealer's orders. Most Pentax Dealers now go through Amazon as the camera shop owners no longer have a direct connection to Pentax USA, even though they are required to spend $100,000 a year to keep their pentax dealership viable. Wonder why Pentax is getting dropped versus Nikon and Canon imaging equiptment by these numerous camera dealers, & camera shops across the USA? I'd assume gigantic dealers like B&H still deal with Pentax USA directly?

Thanks for the insider info on Amazon. I still haven't bought anything from them & I haven't followed their business model but its very good to know if theres a product problem with a return and I complain then my account can be terminated.

I wonder how this will play out in next few months with the sporadic reports of K-7 sensor problems? Good thing Pentax is giving 3 year warranty on K-7 in USA market:

Walmart.com: Pentax K-7 Black (Body Only) 14.6MP Digital SLR Camera, Weather Resistant, 3" LiveView LCD, HD Movie Capture, Magnesium Alloy Body, (K7) **Bonus Acc'y Savings Available -- see below: Digital Cameras


>>> "Limited Time Extended Warranty -- Receive a FREE three year warranty (1 year standard, 2 years extended) when you purchase the K-7 Digital SLR " <<<<

This sort of issue has been a pattern from Amazon the past 6-months or so when dealing with higher cost items. Return too many and they will either refuse a replacement or accept the return for refund then cancel your account. There was a huge blow up over some issues for Kindle owners who had their accounts cancelled and then no longer had access to the books they bought on Amazon.

Long story short Amazon claimed a "software error" and reinstated an unknown number of accounts but given the public response from Amazon, someone somewhere made a rather stupid policy error which affected a pretty significant number of big spending customers. Google "amazon cancelled account" and you'll find a fair amount of info.

I mention it because here you are basically be told by Amazon it's your fault and then you have Pentax telling you to just send it to Amazon to have it replaced. I sense retailers are getting tired of being used as just an exchange center by many MFG's...why is Pentax not offering to make the swap themselves?

Hope Amazon does not make you the scape goat for the problem that belongs to HoyaTax. It's not as if you were asking for a refund (until now) but just an exchange. And it's not as if you are being "fussy" over anything, the thing should just work. I am assuming you asked to escalate the issue to the next tier of CS? It might be nice if you mentioned this to HoyaTax somehow also...though they might be having to tip-toe around retailers about now. Tough situation all around.

I have not had any higher dollar Amazon returns but their behavior in this area might relegate them to lower value items and I'll just stick with B&H, Adorama and a couple other vendors I have a history of good dealings with online for camera gear...they know exchanges are sort of part of the deal. I even liked my dealing with a couple of the popular Pentax eBay sellers from Canookia who were GREAT. I don't remember their names just now, it was the first time buying from them...one lens each...DA 35Ltd macro, 77ltd & 43ltd...the 50-135 I also bought from Amazon.

Bummer both your K7 had the problem. But at least you helped others out by explaining the issue...I thank you for that very much!

[falconeye]

Every time that liveview turned off i put it back on within 10seconds.
So, it is possible that the sensor is at approx 15 more than ambient temp.
At what temp does the warning come on?

All this isn't exact science. I got the warning after 15 min of video at 27°C ambient temperature and no sun. EXIF should 40°C after 30 min and wouldn't go any higher. However, I've seen K-7 images in the web with EXIFs at 41°C. So, 40°C isn't a hard max. limit.

I can only assume that the warning emerges at around 37°C (+/- 3).

32°C with your house at 20°C may still be in the normal range and 32°C is certainly too cool to have problems.

It would be interesting to see what happens with recording movie as opposed to LV only. I first got the warning after 30 min movie recording in an air-conditioned high speed train, so maybe, 22°C.

[Torphoto]

I should point this out to you guys,

2 of the k7's are from amazon, used the first one for light video, the 2nd I never turned on video or lv and still got the green or spider line, the 3rd from bh had the line right out of the box.
all the serial numbers were 3377xxx, 3378xxx and 3379xxx, all lower early serial numbers, so 2x spider lines in the middle and one off to the side.

The line was pointed out to me by a client at first, this is before I found the thread and started posting. This means I had to reshoot a studio session for free.

After 3 in a row I simply can not chance it anymore, the last k7 will go back for a refund and I will just wait for the k7n or k8. I'm accepting early adopter isues here and I do love this camera, it's improvements over the k20D are dramatic, shooting with it showed that it's up to par with the d90 and 50d competition in low light, af speed, exposure, actually better wb and control than either, it really will be sad to send this one back but for me business comes first and the K20D while it will remain as the stable studio cam can't cut it on a stage or runway, plus the studio owner ( website/mag owner as well ) probably won't want to see another k7 after having to reshoot an entire session.

Pentax needs to realize also that the K7 when owners of D300's and 50/40D's played with it were impressed enough to want to borow it even ( rare for a canikon user in general ). The camera is a beauty but these are the same guys who are notorious pixel peepers and I dared not let them fully inspect the images, in a few cases the green line showed up even on the k7's lcd and they did see it clearly.

I will also point out this island is probably one of the harshest places to test a camera other than the desert or artic, here is where the original 5d mirror glue killed several units, the d90 gets the lines after a few min in the sun and many D300's had moisture problems. The K7 is just another to add to the list, today the temp is 35c, humidity near 85% blazing hot sun and my K20D can fire up to 2000 shots a weekend in this with no problems.


BTW I have been in contact with Pentax usa and they are aware of the issue and appear to be looking into it now. So at least they are not sweeping it under the carpet.


sorry I mean not, not to say now,

BTW the Canon forums are such snobs.


One addition to show the situations where the issue occurs for others

back stage at a fashion show hi iso




low iso studio ( first shot of a test shoot to )

[Samsungian]

Man, thats crazy, you gone through 3 bad K-7 cameras.

What Canon lens(es) do you plan to get to use with the 5D MarkII for you events this season?

I should point this out to you guys,

2 of the k7's are from amazon, used the first one for light video, the 2nd I never turned on video or lv and still got the green or spider line, the 3rd from bh had the line right out of the box.
all the serial numbers were 3377xxx and 3378xxx, all lower early serial numbers, so 2x spider lines in the middle and one off to the side.

The line was pointed out to me by a client at first, this is before I found the thread and started posting. This means I had to reshoot a studio session for free.

After 3 in a row I simply can not chance it anymore, the last k7 will go back for a refund and I will just wait for the k7n or k8. I'm accepting early adopter isues here and I do love this camera, it's improvements over the k20D are dramatic, shooting with it showed that it's up to par with the d90 and 50d competition in low light, af speed, exposure, actually better wb and control than either, it really will be sad to send this one back but for me business comes first and the K20D while it will remain as the stable studio cam can't cut it on a stage or runway, plus the studio owner ( website/mag owner as well ) probably won't want to see another k7 after having to reshoot an entire session.

Pentax needs to realize also that the K7 when owners of D300's and 50/40D's played with it were impressed enough to want to borow it even ( rare for a canikon user in general ). The camera is a beauty but these are the same guys who are notorious pixel peepers and I dared not let them fully inspect the images, in a few cases the green line showed up even on the k7's lcd and they did see it clearly.

I will also point out this island is probably one of the harshest places to test a camera other than the desert or artic, here is where the original 5d mirror glue killed several units, the d90 gets the lines after a few min in the sun and many D300's had moisture problems. The K7 is just another to add to the list, today the temp is 35c, humidity near 85% blazing hot sun and my K20D can fire up to 2000 shots a weekend in this with no problems.


BTW I have been in contact with Pentax usa and they are aware of the issue and appear to be looking into it now. So at least they are not sweeping it under the carpet.


sorry I mean not, not to say now,

BTW the Canon forums are such snobs.


One addition to show the situations where the issue occurs for others

back stage at a fashion show hi iso




low iso studio ( first shot of a test shoot to )

[davidt]

I received my replacement K-7 today (#3384xxx c/w #3377xxx) and the problem is not apparent. I did an extended test on it and the dreaded green line didn't show. I'm cautiously optimistic

Oh nooo! Today I have done some stress tests - Movie mode and live view until the thermometer appears. Air temp around 36°C. This means it didn't take very long till the temperature warning appeared ~15mins.

When taking a photo now the green line was clearly visible. Also after turning the cam off and on after a minute and taking another shot was resulting in the same issue. A couple of hours later when the camera was cooled down another shot was taken: Now the line was completely gone (same scene). My K-7 has serial#3381xxx.

Hmm.. I don't know what to do know as I bought the K-7 in Singapore and living currently in India. Guess that's gonna be complicated. Any tips?

[Torphoto]

Man, thats crazy, you gone through 3 bad K-7 cameras.

What Canon lens(es) do you plan to get to use with the 5D MarkII for you events this season?

For now the 70-200 f4, trying to get the cash for the IS version, that and probably a 28-70, just which one, I can get a tammy 28-75 and 580exii flash to borrow free for the season so that probably the way to go.

Oh nooo! Today I have done some stress tests - Movie mode and live view until the thermometer appears. Air temp around 36°C. This means it didn't take very long till the temperature warning appeared ~15mins.

When taking a photo now the green line was clearly visible. Also after turning the cam off and on after a minute and taking another shot was resulting in the same issue. A couple of hours later when the camera was cooled down another shot was taken: Now the line was completely gone (same scene). My K-7 has serial#3381xxx.

Hmm.. I don't know what to do know as I bought the K-7 in Singapore and living currently in India. Guess that's gonna be complicated. Any tips?

Just don't use live view or movie mode, also note your serial numbers are much higher than the ones I used so the fact the line does go away is a good thing, do note that in my use, say at a stage show 200 shots in 30 min is probably the same as using live view for 20 min, so I will get the line right away. watch it closely and see, the line is normal after lv but should not be in stills IMO after 5 min ( the d90 gets lines to after using video but after 5 min they're gone )

Your in the same climate as I am tho, contact your dealer just in case the line decides not to go away as in my case as I know the k7 does not like tropical heat, yet.

[mtngal]

I haven't tried either live view or movie mode with my replacement camera yet. I haven't used it all that much, but enough of regular use to see that it doesn't yet have a green line (but the first one I had didn't show it until I tried a couple of short movies).

The interesting thing is that my first camera got the green line after a couple of short movie clips. The next day I went hiking in the heat, several of the pictures showed temps of 40 and 41 C, hotter than when I had seen the line the day before, but no line appeared.

Now that I have a replacement camera, I'm trying to decide if I want to purposefully see if the camera has the line under the same situation, or just use the camera like I normally do and see if it shows up. Perhaps this weekend I'll use the new one enough to figure it out.

[davidt]

Just don't use live view or movie mode, also note your serial numbers are much higher than the ones I used so the fact the line does go away is a good thing, do note that in my use, say at a stage show 200 shots in 30 min is probably the same as using live view for 20 min, so I will get the line right away. watch it closely and see, the line is normal after lv but should not be in stills IMO after 5 min ( the d90 gets lines to after using video but after 5 min they're gone )

Your in the same climate as I am tho, contact your dealer just in case the line decides not to go away as in my case as I know the k7 does not like tropical heat, yet.

I'm happy when it only appears due to too much heat and goes away afterwards but that's hard to avoid in such a climate. The K10d didn't make any problems yet - even when it was so hot that my sweat started condensating *behind* the LCD glass. And avoiding the movie mode was not my plan - that's the main feature I became an early adopter.

Thanks - anyway I will contact the dealer.

Here are the sample images (ISO3200):
* First try with line pattern, overheated sensor: http://img.skitch.com/20090725-fa843ny15mt12tbkxcx4d1fb43.jpg
* Couple of hours later, same scene but now the lines are gone: http://img.skitch.com/20090725-xkbj49eckjqagpc6gdy9t34n32.jpg