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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
03-01-2018, 08:30 PM
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Great Egret eating a Long-jawed Mudsucker, Shoreline Park, Mountain View, CA.
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Forum: Repairs and Warranty Service
10-03-2017, 03:56 PM
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The repair I made to the solenoid armature about a year ago started to give out a couple months ago (first shot of the day underexposed), and recently this started happening more than once a day so I took the camera apart again and ground a little more off of the armature. It's been about 12,000 shutter actuations since the last repair. By the way, here's an annotated guide to the screws on the bottom cover and battery compartment. "f" means fine thread, for metal holes.
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Forum: Repairs and Warranty Service
11-22-2016, 12:29 PM
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First repair lasted a couple years, ~20,000 exposures. Did the second repair myself (using instructions found on the Forum) and after a few months it's still holding up.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-22-2016, 12:08 PM
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As I understand it, the problem is not side clearance of the plunger, but the length of the arms and clearance with the magnet. Shortening the arms ever so slightly seems to prevent the plunger from sticking to the magnet.
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Forum: Repairs and Warranty Service
11-20-2016, 03:50 PM
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-20-2016, 03:45 PM
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What you say about the plunger being delicate may be true, but sanding the ends did solve the aperture block problem on my K-30 and the repair continues to hold up. I think it's worth a try before trying to find a replacement plunger.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
09-08-2016, 08:48 AM
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First shot of the day this morning was not underexposed! I have not seen any underexposed shots since I overhauled the solenoid yesterday. Looks like the problem has been fixed!
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
09-07-2016, 08:19 PM
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What I don't understand is how this results in underexposed pictures. The aperture is normally fully open, spring loaded when the lens is twisted into the mount. Doesn't the solenoid allow the aperture to start closing? If the armature sticks, wouldn't this tend to keep the aperture open?
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Forum: Repairs and Warranty Service
09-07-2016, 07:04 PM
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The symptoms are exactly the same: one or two initial underexposed pictures after the camera has not been used for a few hours, gradually getting worse (happening more often and more underexposed shots). Today I followed the repair procedure for the solenoid armature and I'll see if that fixes it.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
09-07-2016, 01:49 PM
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Using the Russian photos and instructions translated by Igor, I successfully disassembled my K-30, overhauled the armature, and reassembled the camera. My camera was starting to suffer from the dreaded aperture block problem after having been repaired for the same problem 2 years ago. Just keep in mind that that there are different lengths and types of screws when taking the covers off. Also, there's a chromed screw deep inside the battery compartment which holds down the top cover, and another screw under the bottom cover which holds down the front cover. I'll wait and see if this solved the problem, but in any case, the repair is simple enough that I'll go in and modify the armature again if necessary. Many thanks to all who contributed to the solution!
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Forum: Repairs and Warranty Service
09-07-2016, 09:21 AM
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I had mine replaced a couple years ago and it's starting to fail again, about 20K exposures later.
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Forum: Pentax Forums Giveaways
09-07-2016, 09:14 AM
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Wow, what an eye-catcher!
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
08-12-2016, 08:23 PM
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My K-30:
Manuf: 7/30/2012
Shutter Count: 70,206
Aperture block failed about 2 1/2 years ago and was replaced.
Current aperture block is starting to fail.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
06-12-2014, 07:45 AM
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CRIS repaired my K-30 by replacing the aperture control motor, and my credit card paid for it under the extended warranty program. Being short on time, I had the camera repaired then submitted the invoice for reimbursement.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
04-05-2014, 10:13 PM
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I bought my K-30 in Sept. 2012, Ser. No. 4372308, almost 14,000 shots. Now, most of the first shots are underexposed, especially when the camera hasn't been used for a little while. The problem can be seen when using optical preview (assigned to the RAW/FX button): the aperture gets stopped down more than it should. This morning, with the camera and lens outside and colder than usual, it took several shots before the problem went away.
The motion of mounting the lens on the body opens up the spring-loaded aperture all the way. When a picture is taken, the camera allows the aperture to close a certain amount. I don't know how the camera actually does this, but since the natural tendency of the aperture is to close all the way, I can imagine the camera moving a stop to adjust how far the aperture closes. If the motor adjusting this stop is malfunctioning, then it will allow the aperture to close farther than it should.
The credit card I used for the purchase doubles the manufacturer's warranty, so I may try for a warranty repair.
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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
09-05-2013, 12:02 PM
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A juvenile Anna's Hummingbird caught in perfect focus as it was hovering near a feeder.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
02-14-2013, 02:22 PM
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Unfortunately, it looks as though the mirror doesn't lock up during interval shooting.
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Forum: Pentax Q
02-08-2013, 11:12 PM
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With my K-30, I find that the camera duplicates each picture 3 times, thus reducing the effective frame rate (from 15 fps) to 5 fps. This also explains the huge size of the AVI file. Why does Pentax do this? It just results in jerkier movies, or requires you to postprocess the movies to remove the extra frames. With modest compression the file size went from 266 MB to 6 MB.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
10-23-2012, 08:05 AM
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Going from memory, the supplied Li-ion battery has a capacity of only about 1000 mAH, whereas 4 NiMH AA batteries should have a capacity of about 8000 mAH. With their lower voltage, NiMH may not use their full capacity before the camera complains about insufficient power, but there's still the potential for much longer shooting times with AA's. However, a colleague of mine says he can easily get ~500 shots using the supplied Li-ion battery (in his K-5).
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
10-22-2012, 09:50 PM
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A substitute can be found on eBay which only costs $5 and works fine.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
10-22-2012, 09:45 PM
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I got a much less expensive version of the battery holder from Hong Kong on eBay (quality seems fine), and although my K-30 works fine when I use alkaline AAs, there's insufficient voltage in my Delkin NiMH batteries to keep the camera running for more than a couple minutes. NiMH batteries nominally only provide about 1.2 V or a total of about 5 V. Does anyone know what the minimum voltage required by the K-30 is? Other people have gotten NiMHs to work and I wonder why my camera can't use them.
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