Highest shutter count?

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Stewart
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One of my friends has a Canon 50D which has just clocked up half a million exposures. His shutter count is 501,616. Not bad for a "consumer" camera!

Is that a record? Has anybody got, or heard of, a camera (and especially a "consumer" camera) that's done better?
 
Stood next to a Pro at an event with a 1DIV at 740K clicks
 
Is that on the original shutter mechanism?
 
Is that on the original shutter mechanism?
The 501,616 I mentioned is on the original shutter mechanism, yes. Incidentally the 50D is rated by Canon to have a life expectancy of 100,000, so his camera has exceeded that by a factor of 5.
 
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Just being pedantic but the I think the 50D is a "pro-sumer camera". Half way between the pro and amateur!
 
So, a quick analysis of MTBF would suggest that some sucker somewhere will have a shutter lasting on a 5th of it's expected life-span? :rolleyes:
 
So, a quick analysis of MTBF would suggest that some sucker somewhere will have a shutter lasting on a 5th of it's expected life-span? :rolleyes:
Impossible to say.

When the manufacturers say that a shutter mechanism is rated to (say) 100,000 actuations, they don't generally give us enough information to draw any statistical inferences. I think it would be reasonable to assume it means that at least 50% of the cameras will reach 100,000, but we don't know whether 80% will, or 99% will, or how many will fail at less than 20,000, or what.

There's a useful analogy in the field of weights and measures. If you buy a bottle of beer which nominally contains 500ml, what does that actually mean? If you don't know anything else about the distribution, it wouldn't mean anything more than the shutter life estimates. However, most manufacturers in the EU will use the "e" mark, and if you see that on a bottle of beer you know immediately that (1) the average contents will be at least 500ml; (2) less than 5% of bottles will be under 485ml; and (3) no bottles will be under 470ml. It's a shame that camera manufacturers don't do something similar.
 
When you replace the shutter, the shutter count numbers just carry on right?

Sounds kinda daft to me if it does.

How can a new shutter have hundreds of thousands of actuations ?
 
ive heard that shutters can just fail at random, so the number is just a average they calculated
 
Impossible to say.

When the manufacturers say that a shutter mechanism is rated to (say) 100,000 actuations, they don't generally give us enough information to draw any statistical inferences. I think it would be reasonable to assume it means that at least 50% of the cameras will reach 100,000, but we don't know whether 80% will, or 99% will, or how many will fail at less than 20,000, or what.

There's a useful analogy in the field of weights and measures. If you buy a bottle of beer which nominally contains 500ml, what does that actually mean? If you don't know anything else about the distribution, it wouldn't mean anything more than the shutter life estimates. However, most manufacturers in the EU will use the "e" mark, and if you see that on a bottle of beer you know immediately that (1) the average contents will be at least 500ml; (2) less than 5% of bottles will be under 485ml; and (3) no bottles will be under 470ml. It's a shame that camera manufacturers don't do something similar.

Generally if a bottle says it contains Xml then it will be effectively guaranteed to contain no less than that. There's normally an overage built in for dispensing bulk liquids except when a precise target must be hit, but most dispensing kit is both accurate and precise, so I doubt the volume distribution is much wider than 500ml-505ml, and is probably a fair bit closer than that.

Likewise with shutters, the failure patterns, metallurgy etc etc should be well understood, so I'd suspect >95% of all those shutters would be capable of reaching 100,000 cycles, but a very small number will do very many more, balancing up the small percentage that fail early.
 
Sounds kinda daft to me if it does.

How can a new shutter have hundreds of thousands of actuations ?

Have a look at the Fuji X100/s/t if you want to see a properly odd implementation. Anything from turning the camera on and off adds to the 'shutter count'. It would be fine if they just called it a usage counter, or something, as it gives grounds for comparison with other X100's, but shutter count is a very odd way of phrasing it.

Generally speaking I can't imagine the quoted lifecycle is a true average, as 49% below the quoted lifecycle is a lot of annoyed people. I would guess it's more of a 'the vast, vast majority will reach at least that number', as ancient_mariner has mentioned above.
 
I have to say 'Well done Canon' for producing mechanisms that are so durable. 740k is exceptional, at one frame a second it would take something like eight and a half days continuous shooting to reach that number.
 
That's an impressive amount of clicks. MTTF shutter count is an interesting concept in consumer cameras, how many consumer camera are going to reach their stated shutter actuations before they are no longer used? Many amateurs upgrade often and you often see cameras in the classifieds with only 5000-20000 clicks. I wonder if they build that into their MTTF calculations.
 
Generally if a bottle says it contains Xml then it will be effectively guaranteed to contain no less than that. There's normally an overage built in for dispensing bulk liquids except when a precise target must be hit, but most dispensing kit is both accurate and precise, so I doubt the volume distribution is much wider than 500ml-505ml, and is probably a fair bit closer than that.
.

Mariner,

That isn't necessarily true. Look at what Stewart wrote about the E mark. If a bottle says 500mL and has the E mark, then there is no guarantee that it will have 500mL in it. It means that the average of what is sold on shelf is above 500mL, but that up to 5% of bottles will be as low as 485 (3% low) and some will be as low as (but not lower than) 470mL. It is fairly likely that it will be pretty close to 500 mL but not guaranteed.

Also, that is for those that use the E marking. If the manufacturer doesn't use the E marking system then all bets are off. If I am a manufacturer and put 100mL on a bottle but don't have a regulatory requirement with minimums, I'm not going to overfill the product 'just because'. If anything, I am going to set my fill spec slightly lower than target and capture the savings in fill costs.

You are right though in saying that filling equipment is pretty accurate generally. If you're filling water based things at moderate line speeds, accuracy is pretty good and tolerances are tight.

thanks
rick
 
I have to say 'Well done Canon' for producing mechanisms that are so durable. 740k is exceptional, at one frame a second it would take something like eight and a half days continuous shooting to reach that number.

It might take longer as I get between 1500-2000 shots per battery charge so average 1750 so would need approx 423 charges which takes time. But without that as a hinderance or buffering at 10 frames a second you could fire off 740,000 shots in under 21 hours.

The MKiv is quoted as having a 300,000 shutter life so at just over double expected where as the 50D is 5 times that is exceptional.
 
It might take longer as I get between 1500-2000 shots per battery charge so average 1750 so would need approx 423 charges which takes time. But without that as a hinderance or buffering at 10 frames a second you could fire off 740,000 shots in under 21 hours.

Have you had some spare time on your hands today? :)
 
Sounds kinda daft to me if it does.

How can a new shutter have hundreds of thousands of actuations ?

Think of it this way - like replacing the engine in a car, the car doesn't automatically have zero miles. There are other components that are affected by shutter actuations that the count reflects the overall age and usage of a camera body.
 
One of my friends has a Canon 50D which has just clocked up half a million exposures. His shutter count is 501,616. Not bad for a "consumer" camera!

Is that a record? Has anybody got, or heard of, a camera (and especially a "consumer" camera) that's done better?
My 50d is still going strong after 6 plus years! Thing feels bulletproof.

Love it, still my favourite handling camera.
 
I imagine that the camera companies under-estimate the shutter life but plenty will far exceed it. I'm currently selling a D4 with 175k on it and 3 people have refused it saying the shutter count is too high. A friend's D4 was up to 500k the last I checked with her and still on it's first shutter.
 
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