k3 ii acting up this week

I suppose I'll have to send it in for repairs but thought I'd ask if anyone knows what's going on here.
Focusing starting getting a bit hit and miss with various lenses (which work fine on my back-up camera).
Also the lighting was doing strange things last night on a shoot. I'd set the flash and f-stop manually, it exposed correctly, then didn't. Either wildly dark or bright.

this morning i noticed the difference between my k3, which is working fine and the k3ii. The pin is protruding in the k3ii but is recessed in the k3.
Any thoughts?
here's some pics of the two cameras. the functioning k3 images are first.







and the k3 ii here below

That's the screw-drive AF coupler. It should be retracted as per your K3 when the body is set to MF and protrude as per your K3ii when the body is set to AF (or at least that's what happens on my K3 :wink. In the AF position, pushing a lens onto the camera pushes the coupler into its hole then it springs into it's engaged (protruding) position when the lens is rotated to fully locked and it's aligned with the socket on the lens. Pressing the lens release button on the body retracts the coupler so the lens can be rotated for dismounting. So check that the coupler behaves correctly both when switching between MF and AF (and back again) and when pressing the lens release button with the body set to AF. If it does, then the coupler isn't the problem, if it doesn't then it might be an indicator of something wrong with the AF mechanism. And try the old favourite of cleaning the contacts, if the body and lens aren't communicating properly then anything could happen!

Steve

Thanks a bunch, Lubbyman. I'll check if it retracts when in AF vs MF. Didn't know about that! I'll also look into properly cleaning the contacts. The only other thing I forgot to mention, which made me think it was beyond my skills. When I had the Sigma 17-50mm lens on it. The lens has a lock switch, to slide up and down to lock and unlock. It wouldn't lock. I don't know what it's even for but when I removed the lens it would lock and unlock. On the camera, no. I'll report back after cleaning the contacts properly though. Thanks again!

I don't have that lens, but a quick search found the instruction sheet for a 17-50mm on the Sigma website. It says "This lens is also equipped with Zoom Lock Switch to eliminate the zoom creep when the lens is tilted down. Please set zooming ring to 17mm and set the zoom lock switch to the “LOCK” position.". So if that's the lens, that's what the switch is for .

Steve

aha! so the lens needs to be at 17mm to be able to use the zoom lock (which I will never need). so that means it's also not related to the exposure/focus problems I was having. I did a thorough clean of the contacts yesterday. The micro fibre cloth had enough black grease/dirt areas on it that I've thrown it away. Hopefully that resolved the problems but I've got a shoot today so should know by tomorrow. thanks again Lubbyman

Good luck. And please let us know whether it's sorted. I'm always interested in things that might go wrong with a K3 and its siblings and how to fix them without a repair bill - for a fairly obvious reason .

Steve

Just to update for Lubbyman, had the camera repaired at John Pye. They found dirt under the sub-mirror and it's now working perfectly.