Probably a numpty question but.......
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I'm a numpty with you - often wondered same. I looked it up but never found a legit answer, some say it does, some say it doesn't. I guess the only real way to know is find your current actuation count, then take a bunch of shots in silent mode and re-count
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It would kind of defeat the object of having a shutter counter if you could switch it off surely?
Not really, E-shutter is not ideal in many situations because of banding and/or rolling shutter effect, so it's not something you would leave on constantly. The fact that the main shutter is called mechanical would lead to believe that only this pushes the count as it's a physical action, the ES is digital.
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Electronic front curtain..... Does that count as half a shot....?
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As far as I’m aware I don’t think it does. The reason I say this is because the Sony A7Riii I purchased had a shutter count around 2600 but the file number was around 5800 when I got it. I was told it had been used on silent quite a bit and difference between the two figures would make sense that way. I’ve never been that interested to test if it does or doesn’t. Maybe I will one day.
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What I think is this, the ES doesn't hurt the mech shutter lifespan, but will still add to overall shutter count. When a camera has say, 100K expected actuation lifespan, it will last well beyond that number where ES is used frequently. If you're buying used as rob points out, it's a good idea to inquire as to the amount of ES usage.
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You're selling a ML body, the buyer asks the shutter count, he's going to possibly want to know overall count, so you're still going to have to explain I imagine. This is really the only time I ever think about shutter count tbh, I've never owned a camera long enough to worry about it. The longest time I had a camera for was my D800 and the count on that was 38K when I sold. That's nothing for a pro spec body.
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And will they also ask for how many minutes/hours of video you've taken?
One things for sure though, on the modern cameras with 18fps shooting, you can really rack up those shutter counts!
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It's more possible they might now more than ever. If it's a vlogger looking to buy you're gear, yes I imagine they will.
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I don’t understand why the overall count would matter tbh. I can understand in a DSLR as you also have the mirror that moves and can possibly wear, but what components would wear using electronic shutter on a mirrorless?
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Shutter release button?
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It’s not something that I would ever worry about wearing out tbh.
Shutter count is also an indicator of general camera use and likely wear & tear (albeit an imperfect one) - other components can wear out and fail as well as the shutter.
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That’s why a made a specific reference to the mirror on the DSLRs, I can’t think of another moving part in the camera body off the top of my head, except IBIS but IBIS can’t be linked to shutter count as many have IBIS working on half shutter press which can be held for as long or short a time as you like.
Buttons and dials can both fail. I've never seen any data on causes of camera failure, but I suspect there's quite a lot that can go wrong.
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Then you've nothing to worry about, so why the question in the first place?
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I don't tend to keep cameras forever and was curious about resale
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I agree, but my thoughts are that there's no way to monitor how much a camera is used, how often buttons are pressed as people chimp a lot, process photos in camera etc etc. The only thing that can be monitored is the shutter actuations, but as already discussed electronic shutters put no wear on the actual shutter that I'm aware of. AFAIK shutters are open at rest.
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On these types of cameras shutter count is a pretty obsolete frame of reference for a cameras use, many cameras could fall apart long before you hit 10k shutter actuations.
I think worrying about shutter count will become a relic of DSLRs, it was never really a concern with film cameras (who was going to shoot 100k film shots?) and only became a thing with digital where you could shoot thousands of frames without thinking. Now lots of people use electronic shutters half the time (I do unless under indoors lighting) and when global sensor readout is solved mechanical shutters will simply disappear.
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As someone who buys a lot of old cameras, I have a number of ways of monitoring this. How much paint is missing; how many dints are there; does it rattle? And variations thereon.
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And you are probably right.
Could this be because it was shooting both jpeg and raw files, most of the time?
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Nope, they get numbered the same, just different extension.
The question has already been answered
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The shutter on my Oly E-M1 failed at about 125000 activations.
Wasn't an expensive repair though either.
I never used E shutter much. Though with mirrorless the shutter goes a sequence of closing then opens to start the exposue the closed to end the exposure and reopens to resume live view.
Wasn't an expensive repair though either.
I never used E shutter much. Though with mirrorless the shutter goes a sequence of closing then opens to start the exposue the closed to end the exposure and reopens to resume live view.
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Depends on the camera and the software used to find it. Not all manufacturers/programs use all of the exif fields the same...
I.e. I used exiftool to check a D850 raw file and there are two lines; "mechanical shutter count" (11877) and "shutter count" (13403). If I inspect the same image exported from LR as a jpeg it has the line "image number" (13403) with no shutter count line.
And if I use any other software to find the shutter count (i.e. online) of the raw or jpeg they report the same number (13403).
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Well I've figured out how to get the shutter count up on Olympus so I've tested it for myself. After taking over 40 shots with the electronic shutter the shutter count has not gone up. In fact the shutter count for Olympus used to be marked R (for some reason) but is now MS which probably stands for mechanical shutter.
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