K5 Sensor Issues...

How could a company covering their back (and their sales) by saying that a small number of cameras are affected by any means be taken as meaningful evidence. Toyota said that about their problems a few months ago and that cost them millions.


Talk about rose coloured spectacles.

You have to read what is written more carefully. Nobody said meaningful evidence or otherwise. Just evidence. It's up to the Jury to decide what is meaningful and where veracity lies.

It is not evidence, it is hearsay until Pentax issue a public statement.
The fact you are quoting what they are maybe saying as evidence surely means you are taking it as meaningful. ?

Judging from this and other forums roughly 50% of cameras are reported affected.

Of these reported, some will be regular dust. However, in the majority of cases of those who have posted pictures, the stains show very similar characteristics and the tightly clustered dots, line of dots or a large black circular stain simply don't look anything like regular dust. So it seems fair that there is a common defect due to a specific problem - and their has been several confirmations that these stains are under the AA filter and therefore permanent.

There may well be those reporting a problem who have confused regular dust with these stains. Not everyone whose camera is clean will have reported that. Affected users are more likely to post than those unaffected.

However, this evidence doesn't statistically correlate with Pentax assertion that only a tiny percentage of cameras is affected. There are users on the other forum who have sent cameras back for replacement and the replacement has also showed the stains. In one incident three consecutive cameras were affected. At a tiny defect rate of 1% this would be a one in a million occurrence. Even at a high defect rate of 10% this is a one in a thousand occurrence. So I conclude the defect rate is not tiny, in fact quite the contrary.

From the snippets so far it would appear that Pentax Japan are busy investigating this issue which suggests that they were unaware of it, which in turn suggests about zero quality control. I think this is a good opportunity for Pentax to turn a quality control fiasco into a customer service triumph.

Pentax have a really great new product. Let's face it, they don't have the best reputation for customer service. When I decided to buy Pentax I first asked around camera shops in SE Kent. I couldn't find any Pentax stockist (which surprised me no end) and several dealers told me that the reason had been the service from Pentax. So if Pentax capitalise by dealing with this openly and fairly then that will demonstrate a clear turnaround in customer service and they will then really have a platform to win customers. The good news is that there are very encouraging initial noises from some Pentax service agents.

The internet is a wonderful thing, real power to the people. Freedom for Tooting.

It does look like at least 50% of K-5's have the problem.
That also means anyone getting a replacement will have a
50% chance that it also has the problem. Try and check it
at the shop?

I agree with DrOrloff that if only a small percentage were
defective there wouldn't be people on the other forum getting
up to two defective replacements.

Be careful also with the dealers who aren't as efficient of
SRS who will swap one camera and then give the defective camera
to another customer because they think the first customer is
being fussy. That's why I always insist on unopened boxes when
I buy any electrical gear.

Exactly. Corporates, including Pentax, need to realise that these days they cannot get away with propaganda along the lines of 'Only a small percentage of units are affected' - it just makes them look disingenuous.

We have enough of that crap in politics. No one expects every product to be perfect and it's reasonable to realise that from time to time a product will go out with a common fault. However what we do expect is honesty as well as a decent addressing of the problem.

Indeed, but they won't do that with the "only a small number are affected" nonsense.

"Pentax have said" That's not evidence at all. That's just hearsay (from one employee talking to SRS by the looks of it ) And it's hearsay that goes against the real evidence on the ground.

I put it down to too much Perry Mason in my Stormy Youth. The only point I was making is that any testimony is evidence. Disregard it if you wish, but it's not a major point.

I recognise that there's a tendency towards "doom and gloom" on forums, but that's life. We've had a varierty of doom and gloom scenarios over various things in the last few years and none have been that bad yet. There's room for an optimistic wait and see viewpoint.

The K20D sensor banding issues are long forgotten....The 645D will never appear long scuppered....the Pentax going down the drain whilst sales are now rising....

The K20D banding issues are not long forgotten by me.

Just got off the Phone with SRS, they are going to arrange pickup and replacement of my K5 on Friday,(Replacement time is stock dependant) Bravo! Can I just say, this is brilliant Customer Service and Can I also say that it's nice that whether done directly or indirectly a Company like Pentax can hold their hands up quickly and get the issue dealt with.
Kinda makes me want to stick around long term...[/quote]True to their word my K5 just left the building, I could almost hear my K7 sniggering as it left
Just got to await the new stock now...

This analysis does assume, though, that the duds are randomly distributed in the total population.

It would be possible to see this effect if one popular retailer happened to sell a batch of cameras, *all* (or a very high percentage) of which were duds.

You'd get a few people buying from that retailer, discovering the fault, and exchanging for another from the same batch, possibly several times if the batch was large and the turnaround time was quick. This would result in the loud negative publicity we're hearing.

So it's not impossible for it still to be true that out of the whole population of cameras, only a small percentage is affected.

That said, it does seem considerably more widespread than either the K20 banding problem, or the 16-50 problems.

I may have said before, that it's no bad thing IMO, that Pentax owners are becoming more strident in their complaints when there's a significant QA issue.

Canon and Nikon are plenty big enough to absorb even serious QA-fails as nothing more than a mosquito bite.

Pentax isn't.

The K-5 defects cover a very wide range of SNo's. and don't look to
be restricted to any range. Someone even commented that because they
covered such a big range, the range must also include lens SNo's because it didn't seem possible that so many
cameras would have been sold.

Pentax dismissed the K20D banding and SDM problems of the 16-50mm/50-135mm as insignificant as well and because if this they have sold a lot less of the DA* range than they could have. Infact on the USA site it has bordered on hysteria at times with everything bar the end of the world being blamed on SDM failures. Hopefully they will just get on and admit there is a problem and sort it with the minimum of fuss.

Otherwise I can see the K-5 being the best APS-C camera Pentax ever made also becoming the worse selling because prospective buyers will be as sceptical as they are with SDM.

Maybe, if the replacements are issued from the same production batch, which I doubt. But I think that this is also a reasonable assumption given that:

The problem is being reported all over the world so logically from different batches.

From the reported serial numbers it seems to affect all from 3800 ish to 3900 ish.

It is affecting the very first cameras purchased but also very recent purchases.


I had a K20D with a serious vertical banding problem. I bought the K20D just before it was discontinued and yet I was informed that Pentax had never come across this problem before mine. What BS. My consolation this time is that they cannot deny my K5 problem.