Image inverted

[RobJ]

I was asked to take some snapshot type photos during an event at my place of business, I agreed as it would allow me to play with my new Pentax K30. All went well with the exception of one photo, the camera captured the image upside down. When I downloaded the images it was still upside down so it is not an issue with the camera's display.

I sent an e-mail to Pentax's technical help center but they did not know why the camera would do this. They suggest that if it continues to capture images upside down I should send it in for diagnostics. So, my question is this, has anyone had this happen or does anyone know why this would happen?

Thanks for any input.

[Mike Buckley]

I have never had this happen but I can imagine that something got messed up in the EXIF information that causes the image to be displayed upside down. You might want to post the image here so the EXIF experts (I'm not one of them) can review that information.

Did the image display that way on the camera's LCD or only on the computer? If it's the latter, I wonder if somehow that information became corrupted during the download from your memory card or camera to your computer.

Did you shoot as a RAW file, JPEG, or both? Information about that and whether the image is upside down in all file formats could also be helpful.

[Inkanyezi]

The problem might go away with a reset of the camera. Otherwise, it is fairly easily corrected in PP. A probable cause is some bug in the leveling algorithm in the camera, but it might well be just a glitch. If you reset the camera and it does not come back, you may assume that it was a glitch, something that can happen in any computational system. Otherwise, it should be fixed on the warranty.

[RobJ]

@Mike - Sadly, the photos were downloaded at work and I did not save any of the images or information as I do not need/want them at home. The image in question (only one image was captured upside down) displayed upside down on the LCD Display as well as when I downloaded it so this leads me to believe it was something in camera that caused this. I was shooting strictly JPEG as I knew the images would be downloaded at work and I have no software for PP there. They really just wanted images, they are not concerned about quality at these functions.

@Urban - I'm hoping it was just a glitch, as stated in my OP Pentax will take it in for diagnostics if it continues. I'm heading out for a lunch gathering with some friends today and plan on shooting more frames. This is to see if the camera does it again and to become more familiar with the camera since it is new.

I'll post an update later.

Thanks for the information and advice.

[Manfred M]

Rob - All of these "glitches" make more sense if you look at a modern camera as a computer that takes pictures. A computer that is loaded with sensors, to boot. Some of the sensors capture the image, others figure when the subject is in focus and a third set, known as accelerometers figure out what your camera is doing positionally and use this data to compensate for camera motion (i.e. image stabilization) and figure out its orientation.

What most people don't understand is that some of the algorithms in these devices attempt to model the events that will be happening AT THE TIME THE PICTURE IS TAKEN. Functions like image stabilization and motion tracking autofocus as well as camera orientation fall into this category; we really don't care what the camera is doing right now., but we do want the camera to fix things when the shutter is open. If the camera has recently been rotated, the modeling algorithms could quite easily predict an incorrect orientation and that data could be written to the image metadata.

The first thing I would do is check to see if you are running the most recent version of firmware for your camera, and if it is not, I would update it as this "bug" might have been fixed. If not, I certainly wouldn't worry about it as it unlikely affects your image quality.

[RobJ]

Thank you to those that replied. I shot over 180 frames today with no problem so, hopefully its as Grumpy explained, just the leveling algorithm.

Thanks again all.