Camera life?

ukglyn

ukglyn

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Glyn
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Hi
I hear all types of stories of the expected camera life judged by shutter releases, do any of you go along with these? I have heard all sorts of figures announced from 50,000 to 150,000, obviously this will vary from camera to camera, but in general is there any truth in any of these figures?
 
I would hope it's the same as with cars, the better you look after you camera the longer it will last :D
 
probably yes - Nikon pro bodies tend to go to 300,000 - cheaper am bodies to maybe 50,000 - but nothing hard and fast - bit like a car - some will do 80,000 mils - some will do double that!
 
awp said:
probably yes - Nikon pro bodies tend to go to 300,000 - cheaper am bodies to maybe 50,000 - but nothing hard and fast - bit like a car - some will do 80,000 mils - some will do double that!
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Using that theory I tend to shoot about 300-600 shots on a day out, that would mean my camera will only last 111days out at 450!
 
at 100 clicks every single day it should do you at least eight years - don't tell me you won't want to 'upgrade' before then! :)
 
TheNissanMan said:
Using that theory I tend to shoot about 300-600 shots on a day out, that would mean my camera will only last 111days out at 450!
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better buy a Nikon next time then! ;)

But it is just theory - like I said some cameras last a LOT longer - some don't!
 
LOL If I knew a good friend had 4x D2's at home plus an awful lot of nice glass I might have done that in the first place lol...

TBF I held the Nikons & Canons with the limit I had set msyelf and am very happy with my Canon, it's allowing me to learn and check it wasn't a passing fad for me. I wouldn't change it just yet and will continue to enjoy the brand and with any luck build up a nice collection as the requirement and justification develops :D

OK I'll re-write that properly, love the canon, more lenses on the way as money allows :lol:
 
I have never personally known a camera to pack up - no matter how many actuations. In the film days I had a body for 10 years or more and had no idea - and no way of telling how many clicks it had done. Just 10 - 20 rolls of film per outing maybe!
 
i knew someone whose 1D mkIIn lasted 400,000 actuations without any shutter mechanism replacements. he used to do 8fps videos :lol:

the figures the manufacturers throw at us are all estimates and averages. there's no way of telling if one particular shutter mechanism will pack up after 10,000 or 100,000 shots, and the only thing to do then is to replace the shutter or the camera.
 
ukglyn said:
Thanks both, just as I thought really, hope my d700 with about 650 releases has a long way to go yet then!:lol::lol:
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Have you ever heard about the 'bathtub' curve {of the machinery failure rate}? Majority fail either really quickly or serve for a long lifetime. At 650 exposures I would go out immediately and have a play to make it more like 20650! You have to make sure it is not a lemon.
 
some people report millions of frames gone on pro bodies that have been used extensively for stop motion stuff...regard it as an odometer than a 'life meter' :)
 
daugirdas said:
Have you ever heard about the 'bathtub' curve {of the machinery failure rate}? Majority fail either really quickly or serve for a long lifetime. At 650 exposures I would go out immediately and have a play to make it more like 20650! You have to make sure it is not a lemon.
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Also known as the 'infant mortality rate' effect.
 
We've had a member here whose shutter died after about 40,000 frames on a pro-sumer model (rated for 50,000, I believe).
Older film cameras used to last at least a decade of reasonable use - my F2-AS is 35 years old and still working, as are my F5 (15 years) and Leica M6 (20 years).

With DSLRs we tend to upgrade every two years or so, so that it becomes less likely we'll ever reach the target-life of a camera unless we opt for a used/obsolete model. My D1x is still working perfectly, but is effectively useless for 'proper' work due to the image quality being so poor compared to a modern - i.e. this year's DSLR...

Having said that, my D3 is probably the first DSLR I can envisage lasting me more than a couple of years, solely judging by IQ...so that 300,000 frame-target might get approached...
 
Arkady said:
Older film cameras used to last at least a decade of reasonable use - my F2-AS is 35 years old and still working, as are my F5 (15 years) and Leica M6 (20 years).
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I can believe that, just by looking at the number of perfectly serviceable vintage film cameras on eBay..

I suspect the reason is that it was a lot less tempting/practical to "machine gun" on a film SLR compared to a DSLR, unless you were using a bulk film winder, or had an assistant and large bag of film rolls on hand. The pro's I've seen tend to machine-gun even when there's no need to - e.g. shooting a recent prize-giving I was at - presumably because they can, it doesn't cost anything and there's an increased chance of getting a useable image.

If you're using a DSLR like that on a regular basis, it's easy to rack up thousands or tens of thousands of exposures, and no wonder that shutter life expectancies are reached.

I've always used my 5D mk II as I would a film camera, i.e. carefully compose and shoot single frames. Yes I use it more than I did my last film SLR, mostly due to not having to pay for film and processing, but I don't expect to wear the shutter out any time soon.

A.
 
Anorakus said:
...If you're using a DSLR like that on a regular basis, it's easy to rack up thousands or tens of thousands of exposures, and no wonder that shutter life expectancies are reached...
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True, but even on a day-long studio shoot using mono-blocs (2-3 second delay between shots while the lights recycle), you can easily rack-up a couple of thousand images...

Imagine a busy studio portrait-photographer...they could achieve shutter-counts of 20,000 a month at the height of the season...
 
my film camera (Nikon F3) is about 20+ years old and still going strong (a little bit of brassing on the body work), my digital D100 I have had for about 8 years and its still going strong - it was stuck in my camera bag and unused for about 3 of those years though. Am still using the same battery, it's not had any work done on it at all and I've solved the strange issues i had a month or so ago (me being a muppet and had forgotten that default raw setting was compressed - plus my lenses were rubbish at the time). As I cant see shutter count on this one and guessing values - have done around 10k shutter actuations this year and before the 3 year break was out a lot with it so probably over the 100k marker.
 
grumpybadger said:
But, on a pro body, £250 for a new shutter isn't the end of the world either!
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Was just about to ask that question, although i'm guessing that price must vary depending on the make and model ?
 
TG. said:
Was just about to ask that question, although i'm guessing that price must vary depending on the make and model ?
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Probably not actually...the part will be relatively cheap across the board, maybe a few quid difference depending on model and it'll take about the same amount of time to do the work - which is where the major part of he cost comes in...
 
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