Is there life after aperture block failure?

Oiche wrote:

peterpainter wrote:

So it happened. My K50 after nearly 4 years and 4,000 shots has succumbed. I don't think I'll be getting it fixed (or fixing it myself - too clumsy). The K50 was great, a weather-sealed body and lens, important in this climate, at an affordable price. I don't trust a K70 because of the same issue, so what next?

What have other people done?

Does the K-70 have the same problem? Only been a few reported, threads on PF deal with this, every camera model has a failure rate, 6% or something. Both my K-30s were fine regarding aperture failure, a faulty seal allowed water into the LCD and destroyed the first camera, Pentax replaced it free out of warranty after 2.5 years

Pentax only sells 2 APSC models so wait until Black Friday time and get one or the other much cheaper. I got a K-70 with 42% off last year, KP was at least a third cheaper too.

K-70 was a massive upgrade over the K-30, K-50 is the same camera.

Sell your K-50 as described, it will still sell, used to get £120 or so a few years back but working ones go for that now.

I actually have a K-30 that needs to be sold, in excellent condition and has the K-50 firmware installed.

I've just got my K-70 repaired for the aperture block failure, under (2 year) Australian warranty, just before warranty expiry, and I immediately followed up with my K-30 (similar problem), the latter costing A$175 (USD 120??). I don't have much faith that they won't fail again, but at least I've got my favorite cameras back for the moment.

In the case of the K-30, CR Kennedy, the Australian distributors, included the dead diaphragm solenoid when they returned the camera to me (today). It's a very small and unimpressive part! BTW, K-70 failed late last year, and I made do with manual lenses and the 55-300 PLM. The K-30 failed some 3 years ago, at about 12,000 shutter count. I upgraded the firmware to K-50, so was able to use the 55-300 lens on it too.

Peter