K10D let me down badly!

Oh Dear: I took my newly purchased K10D to the Photographic Club last night to take some pics of the presentations of trophies at the end of the competition year, announced that I have broken my vow and got a 'digital', took it out of the box, switched it on and NOTHING HAPPENED !
It would NOT switch on; the screen was blank. Well, I have taken only about 12 frames with it since Monday and charged up the battery as per intstructions for 3 hours, and it let me down. I took out the battery, put it back and a FAINT flashing battery signal came up in the LCD screen. It seems the battery was exhausted already. You can imagine over 60 people laughing out loud at my 'PENTAX DIGITAL' shouting I should have got a CANON. Well, I cannot trust it it seems, especially as I can't even get the data into or out of the computer as the instruction book was all in French too and Jessops are not much help when I 'phoned them; just said bring it to Chelmsford (12 miles each way, 80p to park ) and they would pinch one out of the box from their demo model. Have anyone else had this trouble with a brand new battery ?

It's possible that you have a rogue battery. Every item manufactrured by mankind has the potential to fail, and I'm afraid you've just probably been very unlucky. Of course being very unlucky in front of all those people will take a long time to live down.....

Sue and I got our K10D cameras quite early on, and we charged the batteries fully before use, and so far we haven't had to charge them again. That is a long time and quite a bit of use later, so I don't think you should expect to have a problem with batteries.

Hope the new battery resolves the issue and it's not a camera problem.

John: I just reloaded the newly charged battery into camera, switched on and LCD came up OK then when I tried to take a test shot it would not take anything; I got a black screen with the 'delete' dustbin logo at the bottom; kept trying, no luck, I could not get an image to come up on the screen; I checked in camera instruction book ( luckily all in English)) and found nothing to explain why I get the delete screen up . Do you think it is a faulty camera? Peter.

You didn't nudge the playback or delete buttons by mistake did you? You won't get an image on the back screen unless you are in playback, or during the brief review mode after you have taken a shot.

Did you format the SD card in the camera before you started taking pictures?

Try pressing MENU to check that something does actually appear on the screen and the camera is alive.

My first K10D was a bad one. The camera went ballistic and had it´s own life. Pic´s came out really wieard and it sucked the power from the battery when switched off. I returned it the day after and got a new one that works. Other than exposure errors when using the aperture ring, that is...

// Mats

Peter,

If you haven't already been over to Chelmsford and sorted it, I'm at Bedfords Park tomorrow (Sunday) if you wanted me to have a look at it. I'm there 9 to 5, and we've got an 'Optics Day' too, lots of nice binoculars to play with...

Cheers,
Dan

First, you have no idea yet what let you down. It could have been the camera; it could have been the battery; it could have been the charger; it could have been your own ignorance. Don't announce the verdict before you've held the trial.

Second, why haven't you downloaded an English language manual from the Pentax site? I find it extraordinary that a technophobe of your calibre should attempt to use a modern camera without first reading the manual.

http://www.pentaxslr.com/files/scms_docs//K10D_Manual.pdf

Third, after all your posturing about not going digital, are you in any way surprised at the reception you got? I bet the club hadn't had such a good laugh in years.

Anyway, open your mind, and learn how to use your K10D. You have nothing to lose but your prejudices.

G

Re trouble with K10D: (a) I do have an English camera book: it's the one about the SOFTWARE that's all in French. (b) I DID read about 'formatting' so I followed the instructions and it didn't seem to need it. (c) I did not nudge the Delete button. The Menu comes up OK but when I took a shot no image appeared, only a black screen with the 'delete' logo. The today I tried again: put it on manual as I did last week: no manual settings came up: put it on 'P' ,used daylight by the window and a pic appeared together with the 'delete' logo again. Then the next time I tried- NO PIC ! I will take it back to Chelmsford when they open on Monday.

Sounds like there's a real problem. Hope you have better luck with the next one.

They'll change their tune at the camera club when you show them some stunning results!

I think you've been really unlucky Peter and there certainly seems to be a fault somewhere..

It's worth remembering that rechargeable batteries require several complete charge/discharge cycles to reach their full capacity - whereupon they begin to die........but that's the nature of batteries!

My father's Olympus OM2SP recently died after many years of use and the mechanical engineering within the camera would make a traditional watchmaker proud. It's amazing that with so fewer moving parts, that modern cameras and electronic devices can be so unreliable but I guess it only takes one faulty diode or piece of circuitry, to render it useless.

Good luck with the next one

Peter brought the camera along to see me today, and there is a serious problem with it.

First off, I tried it with the kit lens and got just plain black images - the histogram shows a peak at the far left-hand side.

I thought it might be a lens problem (perhaps closing right down instead of using the set aperture, although I very much doubt this would result in a black image), so tried my 16-45. Lo and behold, we had images, correctly exposed, no problem.

Put the kit lens back on, and we still had images, again fine exposure-wise. Put my 16-45 back on, and we're back to black. Very odd.

Tried my 50-200 too, with similar mixed results.

Browsing through Peter's images on his card (half of which were black), I saw a couple that looked like those 'Magic Eye' pictures (you know, stare at them and they turn 3D - didn't check the firmware, could have been a new feature ). One of the pics I took with the 50-200 turned out like this too - just a speckly, random mess.

I told Peter to take it back, and make sure he got the software manual changed for a british one too.

Presumably it's a processing problem, and although it seemed to have some relationship with a lens being changed, as I was turning the camera off and on again each time I changed a lens, I assume this was having more of an effect than anything else.

George, Peter tells me he's done nothing but read the manual, it is apparently something he does with anything new. Cover to cover. Which is certainly more than most do I reckon.

So perhaps it is a battery problem - could be that it doesn't have enough power to perform correctly, although it showed fully charged on the LCD. I suspect an internal fault though, but that's just my opinion only.

Hopefully though, changing everything will get it sorted. Just Sod's Law that it happened to Peter.

Dan

Strange. I was going by what he wrote:

"I can't even get the data into or out of the computer as the instruction book was all in French....."

He must have taken one of those "Learn French in 24 Hours" courses, I suppose.

I suspect the camera was put off by Peter's (previous) signature.

But anyway, I hope it works out all right eventually. Can't let the Canonistas have the last laugh.

G

Continuing the 'Saga': went to Jessops Chelmsford today; had written out all the faults found; the girl there seemed to struggle a bit to get the camera switched on; yes, the LCD was empty of data, so she put in a battery from the showcase K10D and it came up,then put back MY battery and it worked, then saw all the weird purple images Daniel had got, so took it into the 'Assistant Manager' in his inner sanctum and said they would order a new one ! I had to keep all the gear including the French software book until I get the 'summons' from Jessops to collect replacement. Will keep you all informed, in the meantime, THANKS to Daniel the Pentax Digital Wiz-Kid who does take a good, clear snap occasionally.

Hope it gets sorted soon, Peter.

Dan