K50 Images Very dark unless taken whist using viewer screen

Hi, I'm hoping someone can point me to what my problem is with my camera.

I'm using my two year old K50. When I take a picture using the viewer screen as preview everything works fine, however if I take the same scene using the eye viewer its very dark (I thought it was black until I pointed it at the setting sun). Its happening on auto-setting as well as the others.

Auto Setting: Image via Screen - F6.3, 1/60sec, ISO-3200, -1step,
Auto Setting: Via eye viewer - F14, 1/500sec, ISO-200, -1step

On AUTO: I've tried resetting the correction to +5 and it is actually capturing under both eye and screenviewer but obviously that isn't right.

Why is it choosing such different settings for the two preview methods? What settings may I have mucked up by mistake to be getting this problem?

Thank you for your help

The second set of settings will give you a much darker image dure to the lower iso setting and the much higher shutter speed with the smaller aperture setting.

My advice would be to reset the camera to its default settings using the in camera menu and ensure you've got the latest firmware on board.

Then go from there.

Does this help: link ?

And a similar solution proved to work here: link

Though it could be an issue with the camera, discussed in those threads. At best it needs a 'workout' to get it fit again + perhaps a new battery (try recycling the charging of it several times.) At worst it might need a new aperture motor, but you'd need that checked out if the simple remedies fail as it could be something else completely! It would be worth resetting the camera too, but if you haven't used it for a couple of years it may have done that itself anyhow.

Before you take your camera apart, put your camera on continuous shooting and just go for it, not saying it will work for you, but it certainly unstuck mine. good luck.

Sounds like the "classic" K-50/K-30/KS-2 (etc.!) "aperture block failure", now or very soon!

Lots of info on this forum and the US pentaxforums.com - so be prepared to get the "block" (actually a small solenoid) "repaired" by filing, or, much better , replaced, or else to use only manual-aperture control lenses.

PS: my K-30 (which had not yet failed, but I was taking no chances!) was repaired by Asahi Photo in Brentford with a solenoid from an old Pentax film camera (which I sourced, but they can also obtain).

PPS: FWIW, the most-"promoted" technique for avoiding this problem is to use the camera very regularly - daily/weekly, not monthly/yearly!. If you don't do that, the likelihood is that it WILL fail.

If you bought it new and live in the UK I'd be taking it up with the seller. I believe under UK consumer law the seller is responsible for rectifying a 'manufacturing fault' for up to six years after purchase. I think there's a very strong case for saying this is a manufacturing fault and this is an unreasonble premature failure.

Perhaps if buyers were more aware of their rights and willing to assert them, we'd have fewer problems like these in the first place.

@WaypointCharlie

Unfortunately this APB failure issue was identified quite a few years ago pretty much WorldWide, and so not just in the UK - but Ricoh-Pentax never admitted to it being a fault with the built-in component (the full story is on the previously-linked US website - and it's a LONG one!).

So don't expect any "sympathy" from them - especially as the UK Pentax-user community is relatively small, and not all of them use the K-30/K-50/KS1-2 range - and they have rarely - IF EVER in the UK? - actually covered the repair costs unless the product was in a 1 or 2 year warrantee period.

@jeallen01, in the UK your contract is actually with the seller, not Ricoh-Pentax. It's therefore the seller's responsibility to rectify. After six months (but within six years) the burden would be on you to provide sufficient proof that the fault was a manufacturing defect.

Most sellers would settle rather than go to court, but if it did go as far as the Small Claims Court I'd expect the bulletin board chatter would be perfectly adequate evidence of a manufacturing defect. Making a claim is quite simple and not very expensive (and if you win you get awarded the fee anyway).

Para 1 may be quite correct in theory, but in practice the effort that it would take a peson to start a Small Claims Court, and to collect, collate, and present the relevant and cogent information from the various forums is probably more than any one individual is likely to want to take - unless he/she had a number of bodies with that same fault - as the court would almost certainly not undertake to plough through all that "evidence" itself in order to decide if the claimant had a valid case.

One might say, "Well, start a Class Action" on behalf of all the people in the UK with cameras with this fault" - but unfortunately (or more probably, fortunately!) they are actually few and far between, both in distance and time, and so it would be a long-running "saga" which is probably more than anyone would want to undertake with no certainty of winning their case. That probably being the case, most will either fork out the £100 or so to get it fixed, or else just junk it/sell it for spares.

OH,& BTW, since no-one is likely to get injured or any other "property" to be damaged by the fault, I think that there would be little likelihood of getting any of the "consumer champions" involved.

"Theory V Practice", I'm afraid.

Suggest you check the date of JW's post and the date of his last login! (Save you the trouble, it was in 2016.)

My reply wasn't just intended for JW but also those who replied.

There seems to be a very defeatist attitude towards asserting your consumer rights in the UK. I've only encountered this sort of problem a few times but always found, as long as you're prepared to stand your ground, the seller will be prepared to remedy.

I doubt it would ever have to go as far as filing a claim with the Small Claims Court but, even if it did, I think the effort is still going to be less than taking your camera apart, trying to fix it and hoping it will still work when you put it back together!

I was pretty disgusted with this to be honest. Did change my opinion of the brand a bit, in terms of did I feel supported after the initial purchase. Same comment around firmware updates, bringing new features where the old hardware was capable.

Same design as previous camera models, so indicated a faulty part batch. No formal acknowledgement of what should have been a voluntary replacement offer. Some with the model have never had an issue, but it would have been nice if Pentax had an open door policy on fixing this.