K3ii overexposing

One day my K3ii was working right as rain but when I took it out yesterday absolutely everything was so overexposed as to be useless. I have checked all the settings in case something has been moved - no - and tried manual lenses, M series, A series, F series and DAs. All produce the same result, so it isn't a lens. To get anything usable I have to compensate at least -4 and that produces a miserable, grubby looking image. Some ideas would be appreciated. What would happen, for example, if I reinstalled the firmware? (I've never tried that).

Mmm not had that happen before, what mode are you using, if shooting in manual does it happen ?
Could try a factory reset in case it's something deep in the menu that's been mucked about, although you'd lose any lens adjustments you may have made

Your description, "To get anything usable I have to compensate at least -4 and that produces a miserable, grubby looking image," would seem to suggest that the camera is stuck at a high ISO value. If so, it might be worth trying a reset.

Philip

Hi David,

Does the preview lever on shutter release stop down lenses correctly? It sounds like your lenses are staying wide open upon exposure. All mechanical to lens of course unless you have the 55 300mm PLM. I've no idea about value of resetting but surely worth a try. Good luck!

I thought about the lever not shutting the iris when I first saw it but then realised the PLM was on the camera and, as you say, it doesn't have a lever! I shall try the factory reset.

Have you got the latest firmware loaded?

Yes, firmware up to date. I did a reset of the custom settings and it has helped considerably. It was a blazing bright day here so things look washed out anyway! Time will tell. Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions - more brains are better than one.

Glad things have improved David.

I find if I use centre point AF for birds etc with my telephoto I get over exposure as you describe for general landscape use in recent low winter sun. Changing to the broader evaluative metering puts this right mostly. I also have to remember to press the green button to reset exposure correction to zero sometimes.

Some lite reading:-
https://www.pentaxforums.com/.../363392-pentax-k-3-ii-overexposing.html
https://www.pentaxforums.com/.../340634-k3-ii-severe-overexposure.html
https://www.pentaxforums.com/.../352182-k3ii-overexposure-problem.html
https://www.pentaxforums.com/.../301117-k-3-ii-overexposing.html
https://www.pentaxforums.com/.../372614-k-3ii-overexposing-after-firmware -update.html

Hope there might be something here to throw some light (no pun intended) on your issue.

That's curious. You clearly found them but I get 404 Page not found ! I will hunt them out on the site after logging in to it. Thank you.

I too had the 404 error. Looks like all the links are truncated.

Here's one of them in verbose form; https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/172-pentax-k-3/363392-pentax-k-3-ii-overexpo...

My apologies, looks like you are right. I'll try again:-

Pentax K-3 II Overexposing - PentaxForums.com
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/172-pentax-k-3/363392-pentax-k-3-ii-overexpo...
K3-II Severe Overexposure - PentaxForums.com
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/172-pentax-k-3/340634-k3-ii-severe-overexpos...
K3ii overexposure problem... - PentaxForums.com
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/352182-k3ii-overexp...
K-3 II overexposing?!? - PentaxForums.com
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/301117-k-3-ii-overe...
K-3II overexposing (after firmware update) - PentaxForums.com
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/172-pentax-k-3/372614-k-3ii-overexposing-aft...

I think these should work.

Well, I got to the bottom of it. If you push the 4 way controller to the right (3 o'clock position) you get a lot of scene modes (dunno what they are called). Somehow this had been altered so that the camera was using one called "muted" How several sequential button pushes terminating in OK managed to get executed is beyond me. The problem vanished when I restored it to "natural".

Thank you for your various suggestions.

Glad you got it sorted and that it wasn't an actual fault. 👍👍👍

I was using my son's Q7 and I noticed that it had an extreme unsharpness over the entire image when paired with a Q 02 zoom lens. I tried a bunch of different things as well as swapping the lens out for another identical one until I realised that it had been using one of the 'vintage' filters (no doubt randomly punched in by the 2 year old).

Setting the filter back to the standard settings cured the issue nicely.

It happens more often than we'd like to admit!!