K3 heat wierdness

was at Farnborough on saturday. it must have been about 30 degrees or more and my camera was very wappy by 1pm in the afternoon. this is a K3 by the way.

it started acting very wierd. it wouldn't turn off at one point. then when I told it to take a shot. it just sat there like a dummy then took the shot 30 seconds later. after that it was fine.

then unknown to me, for 20 minutes it was shooting jpeg, all the digital lens corrections were on, so NR, shadow correction, shake reduction etc were all engaged. all of the settings just reset. I never have them on for an airshow, I take basic shots and post process so I was baffled by this.

all I can think is that it wigged out from the heat. I was stood on the tarmac apron by the middle of the runway and the surface temperature was 40 degrees plus. I was exposed to the sun and using the camera constantly, no time to be turned off and rest. (I took 2500 shots that day)

anyone else experienced similar?

The camera won't overheat, it will as far as I know turn off for a while to cool down. 30C is hot, but unless it's in direct sun for a long time, which might heat the camera up well beyond 30C, in itself that shouldn't really be a problem.

As for all the corrections, they will slow things down, but unless they were actually set it seems odd behaviour.

My suspicion is that in the sun and heat the camera's internal temperature rose too high.

it's all I can think of. it almost basically master rest itself to basic

I was in manual mode at the time. all the tweaks turned back on, and RAW went back to PEF format which I never use.

My thoughts are otherwise. I've had cameras and lenses way past 30'C by being out in direct sunlight. Here and around the Middle East and never had an issue. By way past 30'C I mean to the point of uncomfortable to hold.

I regularly get flashguns switching off at these temperatures.

It may be a firmware issue. What version are you running?

Best regards

1.03 I didn't want to upgrade the firmware right before I went to farnborough. incidentally I've had the camera since new from january and have about 9000 actuations with nary a problem.

but I've never shot in the heat I had on sunday. that's why I though t it might be the temperature.

There's no absolutes. The problem with high temps is it caused expansion and movement of connections. An intermittent fault, if it is due to heat, will be an issue not too easily sorted.

You could raise the camera to 40'C or so by using a fan heater and cardboard box, allowing the camera to saturate to the temperature and then shoot it to see if it behaves.

Other than that, your on your own anyway. You may want to just do a firmware upgrade and keep using the camera to see if the same issue occurs?

When is the end of the warm weather in the UK? (I already know it will be after I visit).

Best regards

Oddly enough I had a similar problem with my K3, running the latest, V1.10, firmware, at Farnborough on Friday which was also a very hot day peaking at around 30c.

In the middle of shooting a sequence of an aircraft I particularly wanted to capture the camera just stopped responding to the shutter button. I turned it off and back on again and it just stayed the same. So under pressure to get it going again I quickly slid the battery out & in and it started to work again. It did not though seem to change any of the settings. I was shooting in raw+jpeg and I have not had any problems with it since.

I did not think it was temperature related. I just assumed it was just another of those occasional lock-up problems that I have had with all my Pentax DSLRs from my K20 onwards. It was just a bit frustrating that it happened at a very inconvenient moment .

When I got home I did though have to put some effort in getting the factor 20 sun-cream smudges off the camera and lens control surfaces .


Glyn

Were you using a battery grip and was it turned to "on"?

I have seen some inexplicable (and unreproducible) behaviors from my K-3 when the battery grip is turned to "on". I generally turn it off and things quickly get back to normal.

YMMV

Michael

Maybe the common factor is not the heat but the Farnborough airshow? Maybe some of those military aircraft emit a photo-blocking signal that sends K3s crazy. I sense a conspiracy theory coming on

Just like the signal K-5s send to red kites

Didn't see one Pentax at Farnborough on Sunday (I was also guilty)