K3 II Interval Composite Mode Stops

Playing around with the camera last night, noticed the interval composite mode doesn't work properly. It stops after a random number of shots. When set to 20, it stopped at 5, when set to 5 it stopped at 4; when set to max, it managed 29 before deciding it's enough.

Wondering if anyone else ran into issue with it before? Seem to recall reading about it happening but can't really find the source anymore.

Did any K1 owners have a chance to use the mode and can confirm it works without issues?

Cheers

Is this the mode where it takes a photo ever so many seconds, for use in the likes of timelapse?

I have a K-30 and found that when I used the intervalometer it would just randomly stop, with no explanation or error message. I had mine set to AV mode, and was trying to capture a sunrise transition scene. I could understand an error if the calculated shutter time ended up being longer than the interval you had selected, but at sunrise, as more light becomes available, this is always going to result in shorter duration photos. Therefore that argument didn't stack up.

In my case it just plain doesn't work reliably. It will work but then stop after a certain random number of shots. It's dodgy software, and I would have hoped it would have been sorted by the K-3 ii, but I suspect that function block of code is just passed between the models as is each time, much like the Movie SR software attempt at stabilisation which gets blindly deployed each time to save costs. It's a smart way of working, as long as the subroutines are robust and actually work reliably. If not then you're just rolling the same problems along to each 'new' product.

Mag07, mine seems to work fine. I've only tested it up to 20 shots so far, but it seems to count accurately, and shows an 'interval composite complete' message at the end. I have it set on composite/average, save process unchecked, interval 2 seconds, variable number of shots, and start interval as now.

Rich: the OP is referring to the K-3II's interval composite mode, not the intervalometer. This allows multiple exposures on an automated basis, and the user can choose between average/additive/bright settings to control how the camera produces the result. You can also choose to save the multiple exposures (for averaging in PP if you want to) or just the final result. Why? Amongst other things, this is a very cool way of not having to use ND filters and getting effective long shutter speeds in bright sunlight for e.g. the kind of smooth water shots that are easier in dim light. This is already possible in Photoshop by a roundabout route, but this mode produces the effect in camera as a single RAW file (or JPEG if you prefer). By selecting 'average' and say 30 shots, then with a shutter speed of 1/30 second you get an effective shutter speed of 1 second. Want a longer effective shutter speed, then dial in more shots. The camera then averages them and outputs a single picture in which you have intentional water blur - kind of the opposite of pixel shift! I also understand that this also lowers the effective ISO (ISO/number of shots, so in this example, 100/30 = ISO 3.3 for very low noise) but haven't looked at this.

You can also intentionally way under-expose to get low ISO and fast shutter speed, and use the additive feature to then bring the exposure back up to normal with multiple exposures.

Ok thanks, that sounds really cool. Hope it works then.

Thank you Richard and Martyn. Did some further testing and, it appears to have been a battery issue. It works fine with all replacement and all batteries I have, but not with the original K3 II one. Thanks again fro your input. Much appreciated.

Great that you found a solution