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Recently I noticed on my Pentax-K50 that the light measurement sensor randomly returns wrong values, resulting in images which are way too dark. For example in well-litt rooms inside I had to crank illumination setting up to the maximum value of 5 to get something else than a black image. Using the flash helped significantly, also switching to using the display instead of the viewfinder, but I still had to take a test image, then adjust the illumination setting, and then take the picture. When not taking any pictures, the display showed the image from the lens without being off, so I assume that the sensor itself is working, and something else is broken.

What are things I can use for checking which parts are working or not, and how can I then fix them? I would prefer not having to send it back to the manufacturer.

As example the following image: enter image description here It was taken on a bright day with some clouds in the sky. According to the EXIF data it has the following data: f: 11 t: 1/160 ISO: 200 I would have expected to get a way brighter image for those settings, especially if it is outside, with sun. Or is that wrong?

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    \$\begingroup\$ What aperture (f-stop), shutter speed, and ISO are your black photographs? Which shooting mode is the camera set? Keep in mind that five stops of exposure compensation may not be enough to shoot under ordinary indoor light when using some combinations of aperture (f-stop), shutter speed, and ISO. \$\endgroup\$
    – user50888
    Sep 30, 2017 at 17:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ Reasonable values (i.e. what I would have expected under normal circumstances), I reset everything to "auto" in order to minimize problems due to own settings. \$\endgroup\$
    – arc_lupus
    Sep 30, 2017 at 17:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ What settings were used for the actual black pictures? \$\endgroup\$
    – user50888
    Sep 30, 2017 at 17:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ It could simply be that your metering is set to conservatively preserve highlights and is set in a way that scenes with strong lighting are being metered to preserve those highlights. Check what metering modes you are using. By "illumination setting" what exactly do you mean ? \$\endgroup\$
    – StephenG - Help Ukraine
    Oct 4, 2017 at 3:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ @benrudgers: I added an example. "Illumination setting" was incorrectly used for "exposure setting", as ben rudgers mentioned. \$\endgroup\$
    – arc_lupus
    Oct 7, 2017 at 11:46

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Apparently the aperture mechanism was broken in my camera (problem of K-30 and K-50-cameras from Pentax), which means that all the images were taken at the smallest aperture value.

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