Hi,
Hopefully this information is of use. I know many people are wanting the ability to disable DFS for the KX. Not really a hack, but a nice thing to know. Please take caution if you are not familiar with the debug mode. This is not intended to be a tutorial, but a quick update for those looking for how to disable DFS for the KX, who like me, have discovered that DISABLENR does not work.
I was looking through the firmware 1.02 for the Pentax KX and noticed the keywords DISABLE_BULB_ALG. I gave it a try and it worked. I no longer have DFS using this command. I'm not sure how many things are contained in the algorithm that is being disabled, but definitely DFS is one item as the camera is immediately ready to take a picture with long exposures. I tested with a 1 min exposure and a 5 minute exposure. Definite increases in hot pixels and bloom with increased exposure time, but with image stacking and dithering these are easily eliminated in typical astrophotography (my hobby) image processing. I'm not sure if there are any other effects with this command yet. Still need to conduct more tests.
My camera and files are as follows:
Pentax KX (firmware 1.02, the following files in the root directory of the SD card, powering on while holding +/-, debug mode <EN>)
File Name: MODSET.492
File Contents: [OPEN_DEBUG_MENU]
File Name: SYSPARAM.TXT
File Contents: [DISABLE_BULB_ALG] 1@
Thanks
Full Metal Ratchet
Last edited by ratchet; 12-08-2011 at 04:11 PM.
Reason: Added reference debug files.