Shutter Actuations why are they important?

[Knikki]

I have been wondering around thinking of getting another digi camera and when ever you look they always seem to quote how many shutter actuations the said machine has done.

As when a machine comes up for sale, it is one of the first questions asked "How many shutter actuations has it done?"

So a machine that cost only a couple of hundred pounds is built to a price and you would be assumed that it would not last as long as a pro machine costing a couple of thousand pounds.

Each manufacture seems to gaurantee its shutter mechanism for a x number of shots.

Why is this important?

So are they building in obsolescence to keep people buying new kit?

Is it because now adays people will keep there finger on the button so excercising the shutter more than they did 30 years ago meaning they will fail in a short time span?

Yes I am aware that things do not live forever but I would have thought a top end camera bought today would last 15+ years and still be usuable (excluding tech advances in storage, PCs and file formats)

 

[unclened]

I have been wondering around thinking of getting another digi camera and when ever you look they always seem to quote how many shutter actuations the said machine has done.

As when a machine comes up for sale, it is one of the first questions asked "How many shutter actuations has it done?"

So a machine that cost only a couple of hundred pounds is built to a price and you would be assumed that it would not last as long as a pro machine costing a couple of thousand pounds.

Each manufacture seems to gaurantee its shutter mechanism for a x number of shots.

Why is this important?

So are they building in obsolescence to keep people buying new kit?

Is it because now adays people will keep there finger on the button so excercising the shutter more than they did 30 years ago meaning they will fail in a short time span?

Yes I am aware that things do not live forever but I would have thought a top end camera bought today would last 15+ years and still be usuable (excluding tech advances in storage, PCs and file formats)

same reason why people ask about the mileage of a car. people use it as a indicator of how much use the camera has had. i personally dont care about actuations. the camera could break for many other reasons, or it could be damaged by myself prior to other stuff going wrong.

 

[tbm]

As above, it's a reasonable indicator of the amount of use the camera's had. Probably also worth noting that solid state electronics are less prone to wear induced failure than mechanical bits - i.e. the shutter.

Not sure about a "guaranteed" number of actuations, I think this is a bit of a grey area, although it's true that more expensive gear should be built to withstand a greater number of shots.

Another thing to consider is that a digi SLR is more likely to see far more use than a 35mm - My 40D is getting on for 2yrs old and has seen just over 30k actuations - think how much that would have cost in film!

 

[ekimeno]

Yes I am aware that things do not live forever but I would have thought a top end camera bought today would last 15+ years and still be usuable (excluding tech advances in storage, PCs and file formats)

I'm not being very helpful here, except to say that any technology bought these days isn't meant to last 15 years!

You're supposed to upgrade every 3-4 years (or more frequently depending on how much you care about your image) - the profit margins of the camera companies demand it!

Sorry Carry on...

 

[Markk]

Well, which camera would you be more inclined to trust/buy? One with 2000 actuations or one with ~50 000?

I sometimes also look at it this way. A D300 (or other pro level) camera with a gigantic number of actuations has been used, and the chances of it having been used brutally or in adverse weather conditions are quite higher than say the same camera with only a few thousand clicks.

 

[andrewc]

Its MTBF - mean time between failures, and the average is, for example, 100000 shots.

Being an average, some will fail early. Some will go on for a lot longer, but as you approach this figure, the mechanical parts are likely to need replacing.

Those that fail early may well get replaced under warranty or as a gesture of goodwill.

 

[Arkady]

Then again, replacing a broken shutter is relatively straightforward - if buying 2nd-hand is your only option, it might be cheaper to buy a heavily-used ex-Pro's camera and stump-up for a new shutter if it fails than spend maybe several 100's more on a mint example...just because a shutter has more or less actuations is no guarantee of it's longevity - I've never heard of a Nikon shutter failing...certainly none of the DSLRs we use has had such a failure in the past eight years...

Just because a Pro has used a camera heavily doesn't mean it's in imminent danger of falling apart. We tend to look after our kit as our livlihoods depend on it - despite the outward appearance of some of our cameras, they're generally in very good mechanical order...

 

[coldpenguin]

There is a website, http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/ which has a database of failed and working cameras.
There isn't a huge amount of data in it for professional cameras. Some of the others are interesting.
Possibly there isn't much data, as I found it difficult to find, and I knew that it existed

 

[Knikki]

There is a website, http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/ which has a database of failed and working cameras.
There isn't a huge amount of data in it for professional cameras. Some of the others are interesting.
Possibly there isn't much data, as I found it difficult to find, and I knew that it existed

Just had a look at that website and it would be interesting to know how they got their data, but looking at it no matter what the camera is the shutter can fail at any time. :shrug:

I agree that it is more benificial to buy a camera with a lower shutter count, but then again Pro cameras are well looked after and if you don't use it that much, the shutter count then starts to fall.

All fun and games theink I will wait till the end of the year before I seriously think about getting another digi camera, and thanks for your thoughts.

 

[paulyoung666]

i dont know if 100000 actuations is a valid MTBF for any camera , however , that works out at around 27 actuations every day for 10 , yes 10 years , not bad if 100000 is an average figure

 

[coldpenguin]

The website relies on people honestly uploading their own counts

 

[coldpenguin]

but then again Pro cameras are well looked after

Hmm, I am not sure that Arkady's use of the camera could be called, well looked after.
He does tend to the cameras well after use though ( no offence Arkady, I know you take care of your kit, but it gets a lot of, extended use)

 

[KIPAX]

Then again, replacing a broken shutter is relatively straightforward - if buying 2nd-hand is your only option, it might be cheaper to buy a heavily-used ex-Pro's camera and stump-up for a new shutter...

Good call..

I recently sold a 1dmkII at a very cheap price.. it was heading towards the 200k shutter count (180k i think) and the expectancy is 250k .. with reasonable use its got another year or two...

or a replacement shutter with the knock down price its either a very good bargain for 2 yrs or just a good bargain..

 

[dizidav]

There is a website, http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/ which has a database of failed and working cameras.
There isn't a huge amount of data in it for professional cameras. Some of the others are interesting.
Possibly there isn't much data, as I found it difficult to find, and I knew that it existed

I have also had a look at this site, very varied data, didnt seem to make any sense.


Dave

 

[Davec223]

I have also had a look at this site, very varied data, didnt seem to make any sense.


Dave

I have just looked and to me it makes sense, Like anything mechanical they can go wrong at anytime, Take cars for an example, they breakdown, not at a specific milage, or age they just breakdown, samething with camera's they just go wrong, some almost straight out the box when new and others years later with far more use than most people would give them, thats life.

 

[CT]

The problem is our DSLRs have the worst sort of shutter mechanism possible - a focal plane shutter. It burdens us with limited flash sync speeds due to it's nature. Cameras with leaf shutters in the lens don't have these problems and can flash sync at any shutter speed. You don't see shutter life expectancy figures quoted for these cameras for the simple reason that with minor servicing every few years they'll outlast the user in most cases, and even without the servicing in many cases.

We can't have a leaf shutter in the lenses of our DSLRs because the lens is also our viewfinder through which we compose our shots., so they've put the shutter in the only place they could put it - right at the back of the camera almost touching the sensor/film, where when it's open it needs to open to the exact size of the sensor. For that reason the focal plane shutter is a large mechanism compared to the delicate leaf shutters in other cameras.

The FP shutter basically consists of two metal curtains which operate at speeds which eventually self destruct the mechanism. Nowadays they make the curtains out of titanium, magnesium and all sorts of lightweight exotic metals to reduce the stress and the weight as much as possible, along with advanced braking and damping systems to minimise the shock and vibration, but despite this, and anticipated shutter life increasing, the basic problem still exists.

What's made matters worse of course is the tremendous continous fps rates we expect from cameras today, and people are taking many many more exposures with digital cameras than they ever would have when the cost of film was a factor, and making huge inroads into anticipated shutter life much quicker.

Manufacturers keep gradually increasing anticipated shutter life, but the quoted figures aren't guaranteed - some will fail well before and some willl exceed the anticipated figure by many thousands.

As said earlier it's relatively simple to replace a duff shutter - the new unit is just a drop in replacement so I wouldn't write off an otherwise good camera for the sake of the cost of replacement.

 

[tbm]

As said earlier it's relatively simple to replace a duff shutter - the new unit is just a drop in replacement so I wouldn't write off an otherwise good camera for the sake of the cost of replacement.

The sad thing being of course, that technology moves that quickly that for a lot of cameras the cost of repair often renders them fit for the bin. Although obviously top spec stuff will last a bit longer...