K-5 electronic level

One of the reasons my first K-5 went back was the electronic level indicating a lean when it wasn't. Not that I use it much, but it annoys me when something doesn't work. It also seemed to be getting worse with time - though at the time I put that down to my imagination.

However, I checked the level on the second one very carefully in the shop, and again when I got it home, and it was fine. One of the SRS guys also had a careful look, and agreed with me that it was level.

Obviously, you can compensate for a platform that might itself not be level, by noting a lean in the opposite direction if you turn the camera round. I did this carefully, on several different platforms, and it was bang on.

Now it's not fine. Not by much (just one bar off on the display), but it seems to not be perfect any more.

Could it be something that changes over time????

Someone suggested to me that it might be related to the SR mechanism, can someone confirm that either way?

So far mine has been consistently inaccurate, since owning my K5 it's always been level when displaying 3 bars to the left - I'm hoping Pentax will allow us in future to calibrate it but it probably won't happen

Simon

Mine is consistently accurate. The one that went back for sensor staining also had an accurate level. I use it all the time.

I've never checked mine, that'll give me something to do tonight while my wife is out dancing. Auto horizon correction seems to work OK though.

There's certainly no mention that I can find of electronic level calibration in the K5 manual.

I have a HTC phone, and the level in that can be calibrated. You just lay the phone flat, and hit calibrate. Pentax ought to be able to do something similar.

My six month old K-5 level is ok at the moment. However my K-7 started to creep out in the horizontal plane just after a year and is now around three bars out. In the vertical, portrait, plane it is still fine.

I noticed as well that the auto horizon correction function, which I have never used, went out at the same time so must use the same sensor.

I just turned the viewfinder level display off in the K-7 to stop it annoying me.

Glyn

Yes, I'm sure it does. It must rotate the sensor by the amount the level detection thinks it's leaning.

[sigh]

This is a classic example of the way Pentax shoots itself in the foot. They have a nice idea, and then screw up the implementation, or the QC, or both.

Not only can they not get the level right, they also fail to provide a simple zeroing function. For heavens sake, even my 20 year old bathroom scales have that!

When I took the first K-5 back, I checked the first new one out of the box. It was miles worse than the one I was returning.

I have no confidence in Pentax at the moment. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of the people raving about how wonderful the K-5 is haven't even looked closely at half the features.

When I use my camera, I want to be completely certain that if the picture is crap, it's my fault. I do not want to constantly have that niggling worry that maybe there's some little thing wrong with the gear that's going to turn round and bite me at some inconvenient moment.

Grrrrr.

Mine has never been level, it's about 3 bars out and has been since I got it. I used to use the level on the K7 all the time, but I have not been able to use it on the K5 at all. Living in Doha it's not practical to send it back, unfortunately; I have been hoping for a firmware upgrade that allows you to adjust it.

I dont have a K5 but I'd be really, really cheesed off about something like this. All my cameras, where possible, have grid focussing screens.

All this reminds me of years ago when there was a vogue by motor manufacturers for fitting fuel economy meters to cars; they relied on sensors all over the place from the exhaust manifold to anywhere else they could be fitted adding almost a four figure sum to the retail price of the car. The Trabant had a more accurate one which cost 60P, a simple flow meter in the fuel line.

I do believe that 'less' really can be 'more'.

I'm glad I never bought an Amstrad Stereo system with flashing dB
lights all over the panel. AS himself said they were just for show
and weren't meant to show anything of any value

I dont see why the K5 should be any different to the K7. My K7 has surprised me, there have been times when I’ve doubted its accuracy especially when taking landscapes which look level but in actual fact aren’t. However every time I test it on a level surface it is absolutely spot on accurate.
Regards David

Well it very probably isn't.

It really beggars belief that they can create something like this that is either fine consistently, or wrong consistently, or wrong by an amount that varies over time.

I'm lucky enough to be able to point the camera and 'just know' whether the thing is horizontal. I'm weird like that - I can count seconds in my head to a precision of better than 2%, and I can sense 'horizontal' to better than 1 degree.

Why the **** can't Pentax implement something at least as good. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get.

BTW, I so don't want to hear that both JR's K-5s are perfect, and always have been.

Have just tested this with my brand spanking new K5, photos are tilted between 1 and 1.6 degrees to the right when level according to the camera indicator (by hand not on a tripod, hence the variations). I checked against horizontal kitchen worktops and a flat polystyrene object floating on water, so they really were horizontal.

I can do better by eye by ignoring the level indicator on the camera screen, this is unacceptable (but is the first problem I've encountered so far).

EDIT On a tripod, it shows three bars when actually level, one bar being dead level so it's out by two bars, or 1.2 degrees in Paint Shop Pro. Shake reduction was on for the hand held shots, off for the tripod, so it's not that, it seems.