I made my Pentax into a mirrorless camera, almost

in #photography6 years ago

In my moment of brilliance I thought it's a great idea to clean the 2nd mirror in my dslr. The primary mirror is a translucent piece of glass that reflects some light into the viewfinder (that's the small eyepiece) and let's most of it through.

Right behind it is another mirror, that reflects the light to the AF sensor. I bet most people don't even know there are 2 mirrors in a dslr.

After I gave that 2nd mirror a thorough bath in 99% alcohol, the glue dissolved and the thing fell off.
I took it out, cleaned it and put it back in with some super glue.

Now the autofocus is terribly misaligned.
I used "debug mode" to set a custom AF microadjustment that fixes it (atleast for the center point. It wouldn't surprise me if the mirror is not perfectly parallel with the AF sensor = using af points on either side would introduce back/front misfocus.)
If that fix of mine won't work, I can always use the camera in live view mode, basically like a mirrorless camera :D

Yay, so great.

I'm not so great with cameras. Luckily I only buy cheap ones.
I scratched the sensor on my first camera, but managed to sell it for a fairly high price. It was a Pentax K30. Bought it for 250€ and sold the body for 140€ a year later.

Now this camera I got for 100€, a year ago, right before I sold my K30.
I don't think anyone would want to buy a camera that has a misplaced mirror inside. And a faulty aperture control solenoid (it's why I got it for only 100€. Fixing it was easy though :P).

The real question is - what's next?

Do I stick with Pentax? Should I buy a K3, KP, K1 or wait for a K3-III?
Or sell it all and buy a full frame Nikon system?
Or sell all my Steem and get a Sony A7III with some lenses? :D :D :D
Or get another cheapo K50/K30?

I don't know.

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Hold your Steem for a little while longer and you will be able to buy multiple cameras if you want.
I recently got a Pentax k1000 I have yet to use but have seen many nice shots take by one.
Good luck & Steem on :)

Oh steeem, when will it ever go up... 2 years ago I thought it would be at 100$ already :P

Out of curiosity, how did you manage to scratch the sensor of your first camera?

microfiber cloth to the sensor :P
There was a piece of dirt or something that didn't want to come loose with a blower.
Found out the glass on the sensor is not like gorilla glass but really soft :D :D :D

Personally, I will stay with Pentax. My K50 starts showing signs of age. A new K 70 would be nice, but I‘ll probably try and wait for a K90 to appear.

There's not even a rumor of a K90 :D that's like years away.
K3-III "should" appear by the end of this year.
K70 seems good, but it uses the same focusing system as the age old K5, so again, 11 point system. It's a little lacking for me.

Yes, it's a shame. K70 is outdated technology, K90 might or might not appear. They denied any plans of a mirrorless camera. The K3 is considerably heavier than my K50. I'll just have to wait what comes next.
Anyway, I like the ergonomics of Pentax. So I'll stick with it.

Interesting cameras :) I try soon get new one also ... when steem up :)

I would stick with what you know. I've kept with my Sony because I had the sensor replaced when I got it, so it's a new sensor. I know exactly how to work it and the images it produces (when I operate it correctly) are very good. I could change to something better, but it would take me 6 months to get properly to grips with it.

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