Using battery grip on the K10 D

When you attach the grip to the K10 body and choose the grip first option in the menu to fire up the camera should the camera fire up from the (on) postion on the grip only. Or does the (on) postion in camera and grip need to be set to the (on) postion ?. Hope this makes sence of things.

Ian

Hi Ian, the camera needs to be switched to the on position. Remember to switch off the grip after use as it drains the battery despite the camera not being on.

John

Yeah the camera needs to be on before the grip will work, you cant just switch things on using the grip only. Not had any experience of the grip draining the battery myself, but its best to turn the grip off if your not using it as its easy to enough to catch the buttons and change things randomly.

Thanks guys never used a battery grip till recently.

Ian

When using a BG then the menu allows you to choose Body 1st. or BG 1st. OR auto. With any just leave the BG switched off and use the main on switch only. UNLESS you want to use the BG then switch it off after use as bettyswolloks says it is all to easy to catch the buttons and change things randomly.
CHEERS Vic.

That menu is to select which battery to use first until flat.

Related to this, try putting a battery in grip only. It works fine, reduces weight, and makes it easier to change battery. But most significantly it improves the camera balance dramatically, IMHO.

Have left my grip switched on for weeks. So don't think battery will drain, but if you set the camera to power down if unused for say 3 mins, that'll not be a problem anyway.

The 'Power' switch on the grip simply enables the controls that are duplicated on the grip and the battery drain from enabling a small amount of electronic circuitry, if there is any, is going to be almost negligible. It does not affect or influence which battery is used first.

I, like many, choose to only have a battery in the grip for the reasons already stated. Pentax DSLR's don't seem to switch smoothly between batteries when one is depleted.

Beware that sometimes during general handling, the switch on the grip can be accidentally switched on, or part way to on, and then the enabled extra buttons can be a problem causing unexpected behaviour. This has caught me out on occasions.

Thanks for the feed back everyone most apreciated.

Ian