Here is a Poll that was raised by a K20D user at the Pentax Forums:-
http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-discussion/54117-poll-k20d-freeze-ups.html
The Poll has completed now and just more than 10% of the K20D users who have participated reported that their K20D units did have frozen up before and occasionally - some more frequently and some less.
So, what does this tell? With no doubt, the K20D does have some hidden bugs that affect its reliability, no matter hardware and/or software wise. In fact, the K20D is actually the most problematic Pentax DSLR ever made for what have been reported by so many different users so far, for various different hardware, software and reliability issues.
I hope that the next Pentax middle to upper class DSLR which is to replace this problematic "flagship" should be more mature. I do hope Pentax/Hoya do not use the current Samsung sensor in the K20D anymore as it is very likely to be the culprit for many problems such as the banding issues, hot pixels issue (that even cannot be completely cured/hidden with firmware), forced noise reduction for long time exposure, very limited LiveView usability and etc. which are all primitively related to the sensor, as the prime source/cause of the problems.
If Pentax is to use the Sony sensor which is now used in the Nikon D90 and D5000, I bet the chance for them to succeed would be much higher. If they still use a Samsung sensor, it *must* be a new fully debugged version instead of the previous immature and buggy one. If the latter is still the case, I would really feel very sorry as marketing wise they are just committing suicide! But judging at the current relationship between Pentax and Samsung, there is hope that Pentax do not use a Samsung sensor anymore and my wishful thinking is that the chance should not be low, as Pentax should have learnt much from the K20D lesson!
Edit 4-23: More reports on the same issue by different users, for both the K20D and the "Samsung" GX-20:-
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1036&thread=31434792
http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-discussion/57743-new-k20d-impressions-problem-ohno.html
There's no way they're going to go from 14mp to 12mp.
ReplyDeleteWhat big deal when it has been proven that their 14.6MP did NOT sell!?
ReplyDeleteThree things come to mind:
ReplyDelete1) Believe it or not, the K20D has more buyers as of late, so you will see more feedback regarding the product, artificially inflating what you perceive as reliability surveys, relative to the other cameras.
2) You can NOT get this level of quality with the others for under $700 dollars. All of you early adopters keep penalizing the k20d because you bought it at a 1k-plus price point. If you adjust it to the newer price point, it's a whole different ballgame.
3) Pentax is in a good place to hopscotch the competition again with the K30d - or whatever. They only need to resolve the quality control issues perceived by users like you, add HD video recording, increase frames per second burst rate, tweak Autofocus to be faster, include the shake reduction improvements and they're golden. All things they can generally do with the existin gplatform.
Those are what I have been asking for for long, including also for the improvement on Exposure Accuracy, AF Accuracy as well as Shorter Shutter Lag which you've not mentioned but are all very important.
ReplyDeleteI think there are just a lot of remedial works for Pentax/Hoya to do in order to catch up in the game. Let's wait and see if they can do it this time!
I've had both *ist DS and K10D freeze on me. It happens when the battery is low. Pop the battery (or batteries in the case of DS) and put them straight back in and it will go OK for a while then freeze again. Pop the batteries and replace with fresh and it doesn't freeze again.
ReplyDeleteI assume it is therefore something which only happens with low voltages.
None of my *ist D or K cameras have ever frozen even once, nor my Canon DSLR. Wrong battery indication with my Pentax DSLRs would be another issue.
ReplyDeleteThe freeze problem on the K20D has nothing to do with low battery power. There's a problem with the electronics inside the camera.
ReplyDelete