K7 Problems ?

Somewhere I've read that the K7 is being returned under warranty for a common problem which will in time be sorted out. As I'm thinking of buying one possibly later in the year, can someone tell me the problem so that I can be sure it is cured by the time I get round to it. CHEERS Vic.

I've seen a number of different problems reported. The main one seems to be the single green line appearing down the centre of the frame. Usually after switching from video to still.

Be careful about assuming that this is a common problem though - a couple of cases have been reported here, but this is not a representative sample.

A percentage of any manufactured item will be found defective in one way or another. It's what is done to put it right that counts, which is where Chris at SRS seems to be scoring very well.

I think it's undeniable that the K-7, other than in reviews which praise it highly, has attracted quite a few complaints.

If the K-7 users of this form can be considered a "representative sample", I think the incidents of failure, no matter how small, is actually quite high when compared to previous Pentax DSLR's.

I'm not sure that we can be considered a representative sample - although we have some recording of faults (how many, has anyone counted?) we have no idea how many forum members have actually bought a K7, whether they are from a particular batch, or even how the percentage of faults relates to the percentage for previous models.

The trouble with even putting up a poll is that those who reply are self selecting.

Pentax will know!

It's the old situation where users that have problems do tend to make it known more than users that are happy campers. I'm not necessarily saying there is anything wrong with that, it's just the way it is.

As a side note, of the three forum members (that includes me) that picked up their K-7 from SRS the same afternoon/time last month I'm pretty sure none have had any of the reported faults(s). All of our K-7 were from this first batch too. Again not representative but no one has really made a big point about their faultless K-7.

My feeling is that OK there have been instances of the green line with overheating sensors and also problematic diopter adjustment but they are not as wide spread as they appear.

With regard to the sensor heating issue, my K-7 should get a good test in the coming weeks as we disappear off to Provence for a couple of weeks

So will we be required to critique holiday videos now then

Oh no ! ! ! Especially if they are anything like mine.

Perhaps we now need another forum on here - Pentax DSLR Video ?

You Tube, watch out . . . .

Do you remember the great unlevel horizon problem with the K10D? Huge fuss on all the forums. People joined from Denmark and Australia to share their grief with us.

Turned out there were about six examples in the whole world.

I'm not saying that there aren't more problems with the K7, but it is an example of how these things can seem to be much worse than they really are.

G

Oh no danger of that, 'test' was the operative word

The K-7 will be used predominately for stills. My Sony HD camcorder will be used for video, perhaps the K-7 for the odd HD capture

Better make that 7 in the world George, my K10D viewfinder was 1 degree out from true. There. that's a cathartic confession, I've never admitted that I had this problem to anyone else except my wife before today.

Not a problem for me, the picture taking that is, I either used the bubble level on the tripod or corrected in post-processing; it became 2nd nature to tweak it CW 1 degree. The consequent reduction in image size pretty much matched the scene in the viewfinder before I pressed the button (not having 100% coverage), so what's the problem?

I'm happy to say my K-7 does not seem to suffer from the green line issue, though I haven't exhaustively tested it to death to make sure it happens. I got bored of filming video after 2 minutes 34 seconds so stopped the test there. A quick swap to still image capture showed no issues.

The site does support GIF, it's not the best but it's a start.

don't know if APNG work, let's try.



John could you tell us what Formats we can use and what HTML codes works in comments?

I quite agree - we only hear of the people who are dissatisfied.

So I will stick my head above the parapit and say that I am happy with my K-7, which was also one of the 'first stock' which was delivered to SRS.

I have a great deal of sympathy with those who have spent a large amount of money on a new camera and then find it has a fault, but the rest of us need to remember that they are in a small minority - if there was a wide spread problem then there would be a general recall just as Pentax did with the faulty powerleads for K10D battery chargers.

Ah well who doesn't have problems nowadays?
Even the high-end Canon 1D mark III had some problems when it appeared, they pulled back their whole stock so the K-7 isn't doing that bad.

I haven't had a single problem with my K-7 (and K20D and K10D) yet. And I use it just about everyday. No green line after using it for video, no funky diopter adjustment, no problem with electronic level, and no problems with the grip. I'm 100% happy with it. Could it be improved? Sure, but at what cost?

It seems I've opened up a can of worms. This was not my intent. It was the green line problem I read about and just couldn't remember. It seems it is all just a storm in a teacup and by the time I possibly buy one (K7) the MINOR problem should've gone away. I hope I didn't upset anyone with my question. CHEERS Vic.