D.I.Y. K3 battery grip

In case you were wondering

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/52446720

Waiting for your K3 af review Jules

Oh you'll get it Mike but you'll have to wait as it wikl be at least Tuesday before I get my hands on mine! Been away in Auld Reekie for the week visiting friends and couldn't sort out the deal with SrS until today. I'll give you a report as soon as I can, I will be fairly brutal too as I am expecting grest things. I know it won't speed up the SDM motors in Lenses but I do expect vastly better subject tracking. Withh the Rgb meter and the new focus array working in unison, it will be a bum deal if all that investment in tech does not bear fruit...

I think it does, it just transposes the green button and AF button...
Same as the new positions on the K3...

My wife's car has a knackered gear box - all functions are retained except you can not get out of first gear - clearly I should tell her to live with it and buy myself a new lens

Carl

Could easily be fixed, by opening up the Grip and rewiring the 2 pins.

Doesn't work with a battery loaded in the grip

but does work with one battery in body, as mentioned AF and Green are transposed, all other functions work and it look as though the base plate profile fit is identical to the K5 series.

So the buttons don't work right, and nor does a battery.

It makes the camera look bigger, though, right?

The point is you can use your old grip if you really want to, and lets face it, it will work pretty much better than most if not all of the cheap knock offs but this time it will not cost you anything, certainly not two hundred quid anyway! As smeggy said, get the buttons wiring re-soldered, or I'll bet if you crack it open they'd probably just come out so you can swap em anyway, I mean they went in didn't they???

Seriously?

Yeah!
Mod, Just kill the thread! In future, I'll just not bother!

No, please do, it was fun

A grip can be the deciding factor between buying a camera or not. There are plenty that say their hands are too big for a non gripped Pentax DSLR, and there are others who believe the grip improves the balance with longer lenses.

So whilst there are no knock off K3 grips and the OEM grips are not yet shipping, this is nothing but a helpful alternative.

Would I butcher my OEM K5 grip. Not a chance. If I had a knock off grip worth £30+ and thought a K3 would handle better with it, then I'd certainly at least think about modding it

I've always wondered about this argument for grips. Have peoples hands grow so much that a modern DSLR is too small for them? How did anyone ever manage to hold a film SLR and take great photos with it?


I agree with that Alan.