K-01 "WTF?!"

Just got back from my first shoot with the K-01, and my reaction ALL night was a combination of "wtf?" and "ARRRRGHHHH :@"

Constant failure to engage the AF assist beam; live view blacking out during focussing (and ONLY during focussing - another wtf moment), ridiculously weird white balance issues; one minute it'd be perfectly fine, the next skewed completely in one direction - white balance was on Flash, not Auto - and major exposure differences compared to the K-5.

My overall reaction to the entire situation was just... what the hell is going on here? I mean, it's basically the same camera as the K-5, and yet it was consistently giving me COMPLETELY different results. Not to mention oversaturation of EVERY image.

Anyone else noticed behaviour like this?

If they did, I'm sure the first thing they would think of doing would be to send it back for a replacement. Clearly they are not supposed to work like that, so the answer is clear.

Before you do though, perhaps a reset to defaults and a check that the lens and body mount contacts are clean. It's just possible some setting has become engaged, the outcome being some unexpected behaviour.

Well I'm pretty sure the AF assist light issue has SOMETHING to do with the flash not being seated correctly in the hotshoe; I'm using a Yongnuo which, despite being fully manual, has a rather dizzying array of contacts on its foot, which could theoretically be contacting and interfering with the Digital contact on the K-01's shoe; jiggling it around seems to resolve the AF assist problem.

The saturation issue turned out to be a non-issue when actually editing the photos; it seems the LCD on the K-01 is ridiculously vibrant compared to the K-5, but the photos themselves seem to be fine.

The only issue left, it would seem, is the white balance one, and that only affected maybe 5% of the shots in total, so not a complete failure. I'm still a bit wary though; in future, I may restrict the K-01 exclusively to video. Only problem is, I'm going to need to find a faster wide lens :-/ probably the DA* 16-50, which is going to be painful on the wallet

EDIT: Actually, thinking about it, a Zenitar 16/2.8 could work well for video, anyone got one and have an opinion on it?

The flash white balance issue may be related to what you have in the hotshoe. Check the menu setting that determines what white balance setting defaults to when a flash unit is mounted.

You didn't mention any of the flashgun details in the OP, when asking for solutions it's really important to mention everything.

As regards the screen, just adjust it to suit. The screens on cameras only give an approximation of the final result anyway, although they can be retty close most of the time.

Well that was my first thought, but the Custom Setting for flash WB setting was set to "Flash" rather than auto, and it was manually specified as Flash anyway, so it shouldn't have been a problem. Probably just one of those niggly issues I have to learn to deal with

Flash didn't work properly on my K-01, Metz have issued a firmware update to version 4 for the 48-AF1 flash for the Pentax model, now it works perfectly in any mode so there must be something different about it.

http://www.metz.de/en/flash-units/firmware-download-flash-units/mecablitz-48-af-...

Discontinued?

Disappeared from the SRS website anyway

must have all sold out...

It has been confirmed elsewhere that it has been discontinued. No indication of a replacement.

I wouldn't really expect identical exposure results with the K-5 and K-01, since DSLRs use a dedicated sensor for exposure metering, whereas mirrorless cameras use the actual image sensor.

Should make no difference, every camera is calibrated to the same standards.

Chris