The end result of this saga is a free repair kindly organized by SRS.
What a brilliant company SRS are!

I don't have a lens with a manual aperture ring, John K.
No change today, still get dark frames. Will speak to SRS.

Thank you Maria.

Thank you John K for such detailed advice.
I bought it from SRS on 18th June 2015, two year warranty, so about 6 months past the warranty.
If the problem is still there tomorrow I will ask SRS about it.

Thank you John K.
I have read that the mechanism for the K-30 is used on the K-s2 and other models.They should have solved the problems before the K-s2 was put into production but may not have done. My body is out of warranty, would SRS Microsystems workshop be able to fix it?
There is a DIY method of fixing it on Youtube but I don't fancy using it.

The camera firmware is is latest version, 1.20.
I have reset the body to factory defaults.

Thank you for suggesting this John, I have done it.

I am waiting now to take more shots when a decent time interval has passed since the last effort .
Tomorrow morning will be OK.

Thank you Chris.
I just swapped lenses to a 55-300 ED and got 5 dark images and one good one.
Guess that it is a camera body issue.

Thank you for your reply Chris.
The lens is 35mm F2.8 Macro Limited and I use it all the time unless the subject demands a zoom telephoto lens or a wide angle lens.
Recently all the shots are taken with the camera newly taken from the house which is 23 degreesC 24/7.
When the problem started the first thing I did was fully charge the battery.
All the shots were taken with the camera dial set at Auto.
I have not checked the latest firmware, it was updated earlier this year.

Just recently I am having several dark images from the start, then normal images.
The number of dark images varies, the most being six.
Here is the same subject showing adjacent shots






Can anyone suggest the reason for this occurring?

I am in the same position as thoramay.
My wife has an ultracompact Pentax Optio s5i from 2005 which has a viewfinder and she will not consider a more modern one without a viewfinder.
She is a keen photographer and takes a lot of photos.
So I bought two more Optio s5i cheaply on Ebay,so she has three to choose from if faults occur. Presently all three are faultless.

SMC Pentax-DA 35mm f2.8 limited macro
Compact quality.