HELP - what`s wrong with my Pentax k100d camera?

[sebannian]

Hello everyone! I`m new in this beautiful world of photography. I recently purchased a Pentax K100d camera and i was looking forward to use it. I also purchased a 50-200mm lens and a 18-55mm lens also from Pentax.
Unfortunately i soon realised that it might be a problem with my camera. After taking some pics during a trip, for the first time with this camera, and developing them with PS CS3, some horizontal orange bands were prezent in several of the pictures, regardless the lens i used. I`d say that 20-30% from aprox 200 pictures i took have this problem. I can`t see a pattern. They tend to appear both in strong and low light. The distance between them is not equal as well as their width. Sometimes they appear as a single or multiple horizontal dark lines.
Please, if you are familiarised with these kind of problems, let me know what is it, before i`ll send it back to Pentax.

 

[Mike_E]

Welcome!

If no one pipes up soon enough (it is Saturday morning after all) you might look in the manual for the tech support number. If you are lucky, you will get someone who actually uses the camera and can tell you what is going on. If they tell you to send it in, you might want to wait until some one here that has a Pentax - and there are some- get back with you.

mike

(yea, I know I should be out too but I have to adjust the valves on my MG and am putting it off with coffee and forums.

 

[JIP]

I hate to answer this the same as another thread but how long have you had it this might be a warranty issue.

 

[Don Simon]

Sorry, I've never seen anything like this on mine. Could you post some images as examples?

Having said that, it definitely sounds like a problem with the sensor, and in that case it needs to go back to the store or to Pentax (sending it back to Pentax yourself may not be necessary depending on where you bought it from).

 

[sebannian]

You can find some pictures with that problem i was talking about here: http://forum.softpedia.com/index.php?showtopic=254815&st=0&gopid=2947048&#entry2947048

 

[Don Simon]

Edit: I can now see the images after registering.

That's definitely not normal. I've never seen those artifacts on the images from my K100d; the only time I saw something like this was when I got water inside a point-&-shoot. Take a look at the sensor (Mirror Up function in the menu). Maybe it simply needs a clean... but unfortunately it may be a faulty sensor, in which case you need to have the camera body replaced.

 

[sebannian]

Yes, most likely the sensor has a problem. It is a brad new camera, i never used it in a bad weather situation, so the watter issue is out of the question. I performed "Sensor cleaning" from the menu but with no effect. For me things are getting clear now. This is not a problem caused by a faulty adjustment of the camera settings, I am a beginner after all, but a hardware problem. And after you and other k100d owners said to me that you`ve never encountered such a problem I decided to sent it back to Pentax for reparis or to get a new one. It`s very frustrating, as i was saying it`s a brad new camera...:-(

 

[fmw]

Send it in for warranty service.

 

[Don Simon]

Agreed. Actually the last time I had a problem with a camera, I just went back to the store and they replaced it with a new model, but it seems that kind of service is the exception rather than the rule; anyway if I read that other post correctly you bought the k100d from B&H USA and you live in Strasbourg, so returning it to them isn't really an option. Presumably you should contact Pentax France?

P.s. the "Sensor Cleaning" function would not clear up this or any other problem - it doesn't actually perform any sensor cleaning, it simply lifts the mirror so you can perform sensor cleaning

 

[sebannian]

No, I`m not living in Strasbourg, that`s a friend of mine helping me to understand this problem I encountered. I`m living in Romania and the camera was indeed bought from BH by a frind of mine from USA. So I`ll send it back to him and hopefully everything will be ok. I actually don`t care much about it beeing repared or replaced with a new one, the important thing is to get a functional camera with a proper image quality. It`s unfortunate this happened, but accidents do occur, even Petax can make mistakes, although is a big one.