camera picture count?

[355858]

hey there just a quick question im quite new to photography, i was wondering why people always ask how many actuations or shots a camera has done before they buy it? is there a certain amount of photos for example my D90 will take before it stops working??

Cheers ben

 

[sdb123]

hey there just a quick question im quite new to photography, i was wondering why people always ask how many actuations or shots a camera has done before they buy it? is there a certain amount of photos for example my D90 will take before it stops working??

Cheers ben

All camera's will have an approximate number of shots that the shutter should be good for - that's not to say that a D-SLR will curl up and die once it reaches such a figure (i.e. 150,000 actuations).

The reason people ask is that it will give an idea to how much use a D-SLR has had during its life.

 

[Flash In The Pan]

I think it's like asking how many miles a car has done, all it gives is a rough idea of how heavily the camera has been used, it's not really indicative of what sort of life is left in it.

The only time I've found it useful to know was with the "brand new" D40x I received yesterday that had already taken 3000 photos

 

[355858]

lol ok i see, someone was asking about my s100fs fuji bridge camera and it has taken under 9000 shots, which is i assume good from what you have just said?

 

[MisterE]

We went for decades using film cameras without having the ability to know how much they had been used, and nobody gave a rat's ---- about how many shots the used camera they were interested in had taken. If it was in good condition and worked then that was good enough.

Now people have latched on to the idea that a camera can apparently tell them how much use they have had and now 'mileage' is the thing to look at. Well, just like cars, cameras can be clocked too. The image number isn't necessarily an accurate record of the number of shots taken. And for the cameras which can have the true image count measured via software, how much longer before somebody cracks it so you can put whatever mileage you want on a camera?

I don't know if it's a good or bad thing. A camera that can be confirmed to have say 10,000 shots on it may still have years of life left in it. Yet the uninformed prospective buyer might think "That's not worth £300 with that many shots on it, I'll give you £150 for it".

 

[awp]

The image number isn't necessarily an accurate record of the number of shots taken.

That is true - but the shutter count is a true record - and can't be tampered with by the user.

 

[MarkG]

lol ok i see, someone was asking about my s100fs fuji bridge camera and it has taken under 9000 shots, which is i assume good from what you have just said?

The situation is a little different with compact and bridge cameras because they don't have a moving mirror and the shutter is electronic. The mirror and shutter are obviously vital to the proper functioning of a DSLR and they do wear out eventually.

PS - the shutter count isn't quite a true record. For example, Canon cameras don't count shutter actuations related to sensor cleaning and live view. Close enough though.