K3 locked up

You might well feel dismissive about it Barry, but I can only report what I find. However, what you say is not entirely accurate and I have had umpteen failures from ME series cameras, all electronics faults. And an *ist film camera that failed prematurely and a K10D that failed but was repaired quickly enough at a reasonable price.

But I have never had a lock up and have never felt the need to fine tune the AF on any of my lenses. They are all Pentax lenses by the way, apart from the Tokina 80-400mm.

Can't be helped I'm afraid, luck has little to do with it, I suspect it's the norm but we usually only hear about faults. People rarely post to tell us nothing is wrong!

I've had the odd very rare lock up on most of the digital camera's I've used - the last time was about 6 months ago with my K30 when using manual lens - Pentax must have noticed this was a problem because they issued a firm ware fix and since then the K30 has been fine!

it happened to me as well, I think with all the digital pentax I had so far

I must be very lucky!! I've had 8 Pentax DSLR's (1 K-m, 3 K-x's, 1 K-01, 1 K-5, 1 K-5iis and 1 K-3) and I can't remember an occasion when any of them have locked up! They seem to me to be designed and built very well.

Regards
David

The K3 is my 5th Pentax DSLR since the Ist*DL and this is the first time that i have experienced lock up. I was simply viewing some images taken earlier in the day. I don`t consider it a major issue, In fact i would not have bothered about it, But as K10D had posted his experience i thought it worth mentioning.

It's always worth mentioning PeteL. So far, nothing obvious as a root cause for this sort of thing has leapt out at us. The instruction manuals mention static, but that's about it.

I did idly wonder if battery voltage might be a factor, but I've no evidence that it makes any difference.

Seems to be the norm, the IIs had a similar thread when that 1st landed.

Thanks Gareth, it seems Barry is a place not a person....ah well.

Its in the K3 manual, Page 86, Section 6, Appendix, Troubleshooting:




I think a similar statement was in some of the previous model manuals as well. It is certainly in my K-5 Manual on Page 354, a much thicker manual!

I do though feel a bit sceptical. I think all of my recent Pentax DSLRs have locked up occasionally requiring the battery to be removed. My K20D was by far the worst. I can not really believe that all instances were caused by static.

Perhaps, however, it is just more humid and/or damp where John comes from .

Glyn

That depends on whether you think it rains a lot in Manchester Glyn.

I'm sure it does. Down here in the south east we seem to spend many months of the year under a threat of drought restrictions

Glyn

I've had a couple of lock ups on my K3 since I've had it. Is the firmware update meant to fix this issue?

Cheers T

I found that when I first purchased my K-5 it locked up a few times. These were genuine lockups causing total failure leaving the only option to remove and replace the battery. As it appeared not to be a global issue with all K-5’s I looked to other possible issues. With me the answer was by changing the memory card for another.

Not saying that the original card was not a quality or fast one but was just marginally incompatible. As with all IT kit we add peripheral devices or media that sometimes does not function as we would expect thus causing failure down the line.

Cards are cheap these days and it’s worth a try before condemning the camera or subjecting it to more invasive repair work.

Give it a try it worked for me.

I've updated the firmware on my K-3 and have had no lock-ups, either before of after doing this. Still no lock-ups on any of my other cameras either.

Regards
David

My K-5 has locked up twice. Turned it off (which made no difference) took the battery out, reinstalled the battery & all OK.