black spots in viewfinder

Have now got black spots in my K10 viewfinder. The local photo shop says they are on the ground glass part of the viewfinder and was unable to remove these. Any thoughts on this, please. The shop suggested a new ground glass replacement but this seems a bit drastic..and how did these spots get there?? The mirror and sensor are clear according to the shop chappie...regards Ronald.

Could be muck on the focusing screen which can be removed and cleaned, but not a job I would be confident of doing. Give Pentax a call and ask there advice, you can email them as well. www.pentax.co.uk/ - 6k -

Have you by any chance used a Blower on your camera?..........Ken

If you have the tweezers to remove the screen then just pop it out and clean, you can buy the screens and they come with tweezers and instructions.

I always use a white cotton glove if I clean mine, stops salty finger marks getting back on the screen before fitting.

ken...No!! I have not used a blower. Why do you ask?? I am puzzled as there seems to be even more muck on the screen now. Why, if it can be cleaned would I need to purchase another? I'm just a newbe to all this. My 35mm cameras over many years had none of this problem. I can ignore it as it does not affect the photos but for just six months of use it concerns me whether this will carry on happening. Really need to find the reason...will contact Pentax as suggested. regards Ron.

Hi Ron!.......It' a common problem when you use a Rocket blower inside the camera, the dust gets blown up inside the viewfinder!....I won't use one now,I just stick with my Arctic butterfly!.......I wonder how it got there?...............Ken

Just leave the dust if it's just a couple of specks that aren't too distracting. They do not appear on your photographs.

Otherwise you can have a go at blowing or brushing it off. A statically charged soft brush can be helpful. Wiping the screen with a cloth may scratch or mark it as it is made of plastic.

The shop chap doesn't know what he's talking about because the screens haven't been made of ground glass for decades, and they are easily removable. You may not need to completely remove it, though. The back side of the screen, and the pentaprism behind it, is accessed by flipping the screen down.

This video shows how to: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YqZCjT-jr1s

Dust can enter the camera during a lens change and can end up on any of these surfaces. Also sometimes there can be tiny pieces of debris from the camera itself. It is practically impossible to keep your viewfinder perfectly clean.

Don't forget thet the screens are made of very soft plastic and should not be touched. Blown clean is fine, but using a cloth could cause a lot of damage and then you would need a new one.

Is nothing simple these days? Have been researching a possible replacement screen. Doing macro, a split image screen seemed to be the way to go but then discovered that this screen will upset the auto ability of auto focus lens. In simple terms, why is this so? Looks like I shall be forced to use a different body just to do macro.

Is it not so. Auto focusing is done with sensors that don't look at the screen, so the screen has no affect on AF whatsoever.

Exposure metering can be affected if the brightness of a replacement screen is much different from the original. I don't find it to be a problem with a Katzeye Optibrite screen, except sometimes in Spot metering mode.

I can highly recommend this screen for use with both MF and AF (if you don't mind not using spot metering).

Do I understand that so long as I avoid spot metering, the split screen will not interfere with auto focus. I was reading on one site where they were putting in shims under the focus screen to make adjustments. I understood that this was to do with focusing. I obviously got it wrong They did mention that the Katzeye screens did not create problems but that they were very expensive. One guy said that he had to pay over £60 just to get through customs from the US plus about a £100 pounds for the screen. Was that your experience. I just find all these technical issues are beyond me. Thanks for pointing me into a more possitive frame of mind. regards Ronald.

The shims do affect focusing, but only manual focusing - how focused the image appears on the focusing screen. The camera's auto-focusing is unaffected by anything you do with the screen.

Spot metering is a mode of the light meter. It can be affected by the focusing screen, but this has nothing to do with focusing, which is nothing to do with the light meter.

The Katz Eye screen for the K10D doesn't need a shim, fortunately, and it's much better than a cheaper screen I tried first.

I got my Katz Eye second-hand from someone in Europe, but now I now how good they are, I would be willing to buy a new one from the States if ever I needed one. I know it's a lot of money, but it's less than you might spend on a new lens, and just as useful.

Assuming the parcel is sent via normal mail, the customs charge should be Import Duty + VAT + £8 Royal Mail handling charge. That should be nohing like £60. It might only be more if sent by special courier.

dears:

I have a pentax k100d super and lately (two months) i've noticed a spot on my pictures..... a blu dot that normally appears on the upper part of the pictures. I noticed it due to the blu sky's and this blu dot comes out of nowhere. Now my question is; is it dirt,or some other kind of impurity?

please help
s.m.

S.M,

Suggest you post an example photo

It's probably a 'stuck' or 'hot' pixel. Most RAW processing software will remove it. Do you shoot RAW (PEF/DNG) or JPG?