I've had my camera back from Park Cameras today, after being sent to Pentax. Apparently, like Steve's mine has had a new mainboard fitted.

Park Cameras have been most helpful, as I'd heard before. I'll be going there for my next purchase.

EXIF shows same internal body serial as before.
Different manufacture date though, 19th Feb.
I've only taken a handful of shots so far, but all are OK so far.
Will update when I have taken more shots

Sent mine back to Park Cameras for return to Pentax today. Like others I've included a CD of banded photos. Park were very pleasant and helpful.
Let's hope Pentax can fix it. I'll put an update here when I know more.

Dave

How long was that, less than two weeks? That was pretty quick! Good luck with it. I hope they've cured it.

Thanks for the update Pothers. Sounds as if they have found what the problem is, and have a fix. If it's a hardware fault then I'll send mine back as well. Keep us posted.

Dave

I've seen the same. Banding definitely there, but only really noticeable at 300/400% view. Some shots have it all over at 100% though. To some extent it seems to be how much contrast is in the shot. The worst I have so far is a bright shot over water. It was underexposed and after adjusting in the RAW converter it had really marked banding all over visible at 100%.
I wonder how many people have the problem but haven't actually noticed it. Not everyone looks at a lot of their shots at 100% plus!

Shutter speed doesn't seem to affect it. I shoot a lot under halogen lights with relatively long exposures and it's no more prevalent then as far as I can tell. This may be because the contrast is generally lower in these type of shots though. Like others I have similar shots taken a few seconds apart one of which is affected and the other not. It usually seems to be the second or third shot.
It's very strange!

I wonder if some of these cameras have components which are close to the edge of their tolerances. Several components like this could compound the error and a tiny change in temperature or voltage could cause problems. Just my guess though.

I'm holding fire on sending mine back just for the moment until Pothers hears back from Pentax. I expect it'll have to go back eventually, but if they genuinely don't know about the problem then it may be as simple as a firmware fix. We can but hope!

Thanks Pothers. I think they are good cameras too. Apart from this problem I'm more than pleased with the camera itself and the results so far.

Thanks for biting the bullet and sending your camera in! I hope you get a good result. I will also (of course!!) be very interested to know what Pentax's findings are.

Glad to hear you don't have the banding. Apart from anything else it shows that not all the cameras are affected. I just hope you're right about the firmware. As I said in my previous post, I'm sure they know there is a problem, apart from anything else I can't see any manufacturer not being interested in what's being said on a forum about their products. As you say, let's hope they're working on a firmware fix!

There's lots about this problem on the web. To be honest I don't want to play the "send it back for a corporate speak reply" game. Maybe it will tell them there's a problem, but I'll have a guess that Pentax know that already, they just don't want to admit it and open the floodgates to giving out new cameras.

Hi I'm a newbie here, both to Pentax and these forums. Didn't want to start a new thread, but I've recently noticed the same banding on my K20D.
Does anyone know any more about this, I read somewhere (can't remember where now of course!) that a camera sent back to Pentax for this problem was cleaned and sent back with "No problem"
Is it worth contacting them in this case?
I don't think it's the IS. I did wonder at first, but the last incidence of the problem was on the tripod with IS turned off. It seems to happen after taking several shots with a cold camera, although the EXIF shows 20C as camera temperature. Intermittent faults in any type of electrical / electronics gear are the very devil to solve!
Very strange whatever the cause. I must say I don't really want to invest in new software to solve the problem. Anyone know if there's any chance of a firmware fix. This problem seems to be showing up in lots of these cameras. Mine has about 3500 shots on it now.
All comments on this slightly disjointed post gratefully received.
Dave