Pentax Posts Apology for K-5 'Stains'

[shots worth sharing]

<p><a href="http://support.pentaximaging.com/node/1214">Here</a>. I'm a bit surprised and very pleased by this. I'll be sending mine in as soon as the basketball season ends. </p>

 

[derek_kennedy]

<p>This doesnt affect me as I dont have any Pentax digital cameras but Im really pleased (and surprised) that they did apologize.</p>

[jgredline]

<p>personally, that may be what will cause me to buy a K-5. Still not willing to pay over 1k for one, but by the time the price goes down the stained ones should be gone. still, that is a great move on their part.</p>

[ukhov]

<p>Price all the matter for me too, other- thruly not much of upgrader in same format, after all. Just happy for guys who realy dill with sensor-staine-moment of some importance in PENTAXIAN COMMUNITY!</p>

[bob-c]

<p>A refreshing change of attitude. Thanks, Dave.</p>

[c_wyatt]

<p>Same as above from me, good stuff.</p>

[garry_young1]

<p>That is indeed an impressive marketing step. It's not what I have come to expect, so that is very encouraging. Good on Pentax.</p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>It's been shown that when you quickly and openly address an issue and then fix it that it doesn't have any long term impact on your perception in the marketplace. Nikon has had many issues over the years that it quickly acknowledged and fixed, and they all were just short term news stories. Canon on the other hand denied it's AF issues for the longest time till the whole thing just blew up.</p>

<p>I guess companies don't follow the proactive route because they assume it will cost them more in the short term than just denying it till they can fix it in the manufacturing process. Imagine if Pentax had to recall every 1st generation SDM lens? It would cost millions to repair and replace the parts, but if they deny it, chances are many lenses (even those that are time bombs) won't die till long after the warranty expired costing Pentax nothing. Can you prove that Pentax lenses were faulty? Not on your life, mechanical parts are designed to eventually fail so it would be really hard to prove it was a design flaw.</p>

<p>This stain issue was clearly real, and easily proved so I don't give Pentax the kudos you all are. I think if they had denied this issue any longer, they'd have had serious long term brand damage and even perhaps lost parts of their core customer base.</p>

<p>Sorry I look at this more like Toyota, back to the wall and then apologetic...rather than proactively apologetic.</p>

<p> </p>

[michael_kuhne]

<p>I also think that this problemwas something more obvious, and a srtraightforward fix. but Justin, are you saying that Nikon is the best company when it comes to admitting and correcting design or manufacturing issues? I have seen some complaints about them too.</p>

<p>At least in the past, from my experience and from others I know of, Pentax has been pretty good about fixing or replacing stuff.</p>

<p>Yes, the piecemeal approach to the SDM problem makes dollars and sense- hoping that the vast majority from that production generation will not fail. But they should have extended the warranty to 5 years- the standard for Nikon's top lenses, as well as Sigma's, I believe, or Tamron's? </p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>Nope, didn't say that. Just said Nikon is generally forthcoming.</p>

<p>Apple is also generally forthcoming. If you follow tech, almost every apple product release has some sort of issues, but aside from antenna gate, Apple generally acknowledges them to some degree pretty quickly.</p>

<p>I do agree, even if Pentax didn't officially recall the SDM lenses in question, it should repair them for either free or substantially reduced cost for several years. It's still cheaper than an all out recall because we have yet to verify that 100% of 1st gen SDM lenses failed, and it would make everyone happy. Or, as many have proposed, allow a firmware update to let people choose SDM/screwdrive focus on the lenses. This way, SDM fails you can flip a software switch and keep shooting.</p>

<p>Anyway, I'm not being negative towards Pentax on this issue, I think it's a good move and the right move. My issue is I'm not about to ooh and ahhh over Pentax doing what it NEEDED to do.</p>

<p>It's kinda like when some baseball players got caught using steroids and they "admitted" it and the pro steroid people said, "well, it's not like he didn't admit it." No he didn't admit it, he was caught and forced to admit the obvious.</p>

<p>Pentax was caught with shoddy QC (that seems to be more and more the norm only this was undeniably real) and it did the only thing it could do.</p>

<p><em><strong>Big difference between doing the right thing, and being compelled to do the right thing!</strong></em></p>

<p> </p>

[Sanford]

<p>Apple would never admit an error...</p>

[shots worth sharing]

<p>Point taken, Justin and I guess my reaction is more "ahh" than "ooh". My take is that Pentax understood that the issue was a real threat to their hopes for the K-5 as a competitive breakthrough. I'm glad they recognized that and dealt with it but it wasn't obvious that they would. Is there someone somewhere who believes Barry Bonds? </p>

[garry_young1]

Good point Justin. Not negative, but rather realistic.

 

Who is Barry Bonds Dave? *wink*

[mountainvisions]

<p>Les,</p>

<p>Are you talking about the stains or the SDM failures? <br /><br /><br />There is no doubt the SDM failures are real. My test copy of the 300mm f/4 failed out of the box! Yet Pentax has never admitted a problem and outright refuses to acknowledge it by either recalling the lenses OR simply writing the firmware to use the screwdrive motor.</p>

<p>What Pentax did was inexcusable. No technical need to talk about discovery, evaluation, and remedy. They discovered it, the evaluated it, and their remedy was to do nothing unless you threw a tantrum and then they'd do the repair (sometimes) for parts only. When I buy a $1000 lens, I expect it to not fail within 1-2 years, I certainly expect it to not fail because of an engineering flaw that was never publicly addressed and left many people with the choice of spending $200 on repair out of pocket or having a $1000 paperweight that they couldn't even sell because of the failure and/or the public perception of a flawed product.</p>

<p>I have no issues with the sensor problem, stuff happens and they did address it, but the idea that they did it because they care about the customer is blatantly wrong or worse naive. They did it because the issue was repeatable right out of the box of nearly every camera. Which means all Pop Photo or any other test or media site had to do was stop by the local store and buy a dozen K-5s and most likely all of them would have this issue.</p>

<p>So I think Pentax was caught red handed in this one and did the only thing it could do, replace the sensors and issue an apology for it's continuing decline in quality control while at the same time raising prices! I can see QC dropping because of lower price point, but when you raise a price point your customers expect a better quality product. </p>

<p>Next you'll be telling me Toyota still builds quality cars and all those recalls were nonsense and only done because Toyota REALLY cared about the customer? Again, wrong, Toyota had it's back to the wall, it saw it's US market completely crumble in a near instant and the US government told it to fix the problems. They wrote off the acceleration issues till the no longer could deny it. Then, and only then, did Mr Toyoda give his tearful speech to the media about how Toyota failed it's loyal customers.</p>

<p>I wish people would stop apologizing for corporate greed and arrogance and just accept that the only time a problem is fixed is when it ultimately impacts the bottom line.</p>

<p> </p>