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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
10-29-2023, 06:26 PM
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Thanks for posting this! You caught me in time. I had picked up some contact cleaner but hadn’t used it yet.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
10-27-2023, 06:43 AM
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Yes, I thought of this yesterday afternoon and gave it a try. It's definitely the rear e-dial that is acting up, not just the ISO setting. The really interesting/weird thing is that is seems to be connected to me having the camera hanging on a strap that connects to the tripod mounting screw on the bottom. It must flex something just enough to create a contact. I bought some contact cleaner and will give that a try. I'm going to try zapping it with that without taking it apart. I think the risk of that is probably lower than disassembling it and losing a couple of screws. I've done computer disassembly before, but always with a really good guide for putting things back together.
---------- Post added 10-27-23 at 09:43 AM ----------
It's off. I thought of that as well.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
10-26-2023, 08:53 AM
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It's not on auto ISO, I checked that out right away. It's also just an occasional random ISO jump, rather than the more active moving around of ISO I see in the auto mode. Thanks for replying though!
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
10-26-2023, 07:49 AM
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Thanks, I'll clean the contacts. I have experienced it with a several different lenses, so it doesn't seem to be lens-specific...
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
10-26-2023, 07:07 AM
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My K3II is randomly changing ISO without input of any kind from me. Auto EV compensation is off. I have it set in Av mode. I have had this camera for almost six years and have never experienced this before. I did recently update the firmware to the latest version, but other than that I haven't made any changes myself. Any ideas as to what is going on here and how I can fix it?
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
11-29-2010, 09:08 AM
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I faced the same choice a couple of months ago (when the K-5 specs and price were known) and went with the K-7. I used the $700 price difference to buy a couple of good lenses, which I will continue to use when I buy a K-5 in two years or so when it costs a lot less than $1,599.
I tend to do a lot of available light and street style photography. The K-7 has worked well for this. And while image quality and low light performance could be better in some situations, those situations aren't terribly common in real life. Plus, knowing your equipment's strengths and weaknesses is part of what I like about photography.
To me this is ultimately a financial question. Can you afford a K-5 plus some good lenses? If you can, get it, it does have a better sensor. If not, the K-7 is a very solid alternative that will allow you to take great images at half the cost.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-25-2010, 10:49 AM
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A good professional photographer has the right equipment for a given project. Sometimes that's a tough, but bulky, system with a half-dozen expensive lenses. Other times it's a point and shoot (really).
I apprenticed with a successful professional photographer (lots of annual reports, commissions, studio and advertising work) for four years. Not counting large format stuff, we used Mamiya, Hasselblad, Linhoff, and Nikon. We had Nikon bodies ranging from totally manual (FM2s) to the enthusiast grade (8008 and N90s) to professional systems (F4s). We used them all.
If I was a full time professional (and I'm not), I would own several different camera systems and use them where they were strongest. I could see myself using Pentax for street photography, and casual portrait work. The new 645 would be a great studio camera. I'd probably also have a Nikon body and a couple of lenses for high-speed or low-light work.
Unless someone was paying me, there's no way I'd just use one brand - and even then, I would think hard about it before I said yes.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-22-2010, 07:17 AM
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Well, upon reflection, I decided that sending it to Eric (thanks boriscleto) was the better part of valor - and a more realistic appraisal of my chances of doing it right. I don't have it back yet, but I can say his price for fixing it was good - $40 with shipping.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
10-18-2010, 06:52 PM
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I would be curious about this. If I were a betting man, however, I bet they don't - my guess is that the bottleneck on the K-7 is the camera's own processor. Has anyone actually done any testing on this?
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
10-18-2010, 12:57 PM
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There are different kinds of pros out there using all kinds of equipment to do the work they have to do.
It's true that Nikon and Canon own most of the photo-journalism market in the United States, for instance, but it's not universal. When I was working as a journalist, I shot for years with Minolta (film) gear. As a couple of other people here have already noted, nobody cares much about the name on your camera body if you can deliver the image they want.
Bad things do happen to equipment from time to time, but in my experience less often than you might think. In about 15 years of photography work (mostly part-time or as a component of a more general communications job), I've shot hundreds of thousands of frames, had one camera and one lens stolen, and broke a solitary flash unit when I was hit by a hockey puck.
So, shoot what you are comfortable with, or have lenses for - just make sure to get the image.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-16-2010, 11:50 AM
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Thanks for all of the information. The instruction thread and screwdriver information looks particularly helpful.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-15-2010, 08:59 AM
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Thanks all - It's definitely overexposing in some situations, AlohaDave is right, it's clearly visible in the histogram and to the naked eye.
The thing that's odd about it is that the k7's meter is choosing to over expose (it's not a stuck diaphram or other mechanical issue in the lens). For instance, shooting the same scene at the same focal length and same f-stop, it will consistently choose a slower shutter speed with the 28 than with the 16-45.
I have been just setting the EV compensation and enjoying the lens, but I still find this a bit curious.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-15-2010, 08:51 AM
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I'm soon to be the owner of a 50mm 1.7 with a aperture ring that won't turn past f11 (teach me not to read the details on an ebay auction closely enough). I will be using it on a K-7 and as such would really like to be able to get it to "A"
Any ideas on how to go about freeing the ring? At this point, I don't feel like I've got much to lose, so I'm up to doing some disassembly and tinkering about.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-10-2010, 04:35 PM
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I recently picked up a clean 28mm f.2.8 A lens for my K-7. It appears to function correctly and takes nice sharp images. That said, I have noticed that the K-7's meter tends to want to overexpose through this lens by somewhere between 2/3 and a full stop.
I've tested this by shooting identical scenes with it and another lens (a 16-45 DA) set to 28 mm at the same aperture. Sure enough, the camera generally thinks it needs more light under the same conditions when the 28mm is mounted. Histograms also show the highlights clipped on the right. Just to remove a red herring, I've also played with the Dynamic Range settings, they don't seem to make a difference.
Of course, this is easily correctable by using exposure compensation, but I'm curious if anyone else has experienced something like this, as well as if anyone has any ideas on what might be going on here.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
10-08-2010, 07:05 PM
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| Pros | Very well constructed, lots of features, inexpensive Cons | high sensitivity noise Rating | 8 Price (U.S. Dollars) | 869 Years Owned | less than a month |
I can recommend this camera: Yes
Value, Features, Performance & Size
The K-7 is a great value, significantly better built and featured than any other camera in its price class. It also is significantly more compact than its competitors. A K-7 with a couple of limited primes packs a lot of camera into a small space, making it easy to bring with you instead of leaving at home.
Camera Review
The last time I used a Pentax camera was when I took photography classes in high school and was issued a K1000. I assumed, when I went camera shopping this fall, I would be getting a Nikon D90 or 300s. I have shot with Nikon equipment for years and used it as my standard equipment for professional work (mostly photojournalism).
I decided to try out a K-7 for several reasons.
Price: With the K-5 coming out, K-7s are quite reasonably priced. While they have the features of a 7D or a 300s, they cost the same or less than a D90.
Limited lenses: These lenses are beautiful, fun to use, and constructed of finely finished metal and glass. They remind me of why I found photography so interesting in high school. And, they take really nice images as well.
Construction: As a photographer who has lost camera equipment to the hard knocks of life (and an occasional hockey puck), the K-7's metal, not plastic, construction weather sealing and low temperature rating were very attractive.
Small size: I was also attracted by the K-7's small dimensions. The best camera in any situation is the camera that you have with you. Over the years, I have learned that smaller cameras always go with me more places than larger ones. The K-7 is really compact. It feels significantly smaller than a D90 and an order of magnitude smaller than Canon's current enthusiast cameras.
Issues:
The only thing I wondered about was how much of a real issue the much-reported high noise levels at high sensitivity settings would be. On that front, I have to say that the K-7 does produce noticeable noise at any ISO setting over 400. I've found it usable through 1600, particularly for anything that won't be bigger than 8x10. But, there is no getting around the fact that it does lag at least a stop, possibly two, behind what my work's D90 is capable of.
For me, it's been a worthwhile trade off. The K-7 is fun to use, inexpensive, and altogether more satisfying to me than the enthusiast and pro level Nikons I have used for years. Yes, if I was working a high speed indoor sporting event, there are better cameras out there, even at this price point. But that's not what I'm doing with this camera. Instead I'm making images I love and reconnecting with why I picked up photography in the first place. The K-7 has proven to be a great choice for that task. I'm glad I picked it up.
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