Shutter Actuations - What Gives?

[Mark Vaughan]

I have been looking around for a DSLR and find that most sellers list a count of "Shutter Actuations". One camera was listed as, "...mint, but does have heavy use - 5000 shutter actuations". Others point out how low their number is like the odometer on a car.

Does this sound a bit wimpy to you? I have over 9000 digital pictures in my hard drive from two cameras - can I expect a shutter failure soon?

My old F2 has well over 150,000 "shutter actuations" that I know of and it's just getting broken in.

I know that the viable shelf life is short and that digital cameras go obsolete quickly, but can anyone offer any insight into recent reliability trends of DSLR shutters?

Thanks,
Mark

[photax]

Hi Mark !

I have also read this in various insertions, but dont know how to handle this information. Your comparison with the odometer would be accurate. Maybe at 100.000 shutter actuations the camera will explode ? Or the display will show " Hey Guy, buy the new model !" I am also interested to hear a intelligent answer...

MIK

[pompiere]

Well, we sometimes describe an old film camera as having only shot a few rolls before being stashed in a closet, ususally because the inside looks pristine. Since you can't open the back of a digital, maybe this is their way of saying the same thing? I'm sure that all those little auto focus and zoom servo motors have a finite number of cycles in their lifetime.

[nikonbob]

I am guessing that it has to do with shutter life expectancies. I have read on the net that the D700 shutter is rated at 150,000 cycles and the D3 is rated at 300,000 cycles. People seem to take many more shots in a shorter time using digital than film so a camera may age quicker. Comparing it to an odometer reading is pretty true, I think. I don't think shutters are any more or less reliable with today's DSLRs because I do not think there was a need for a completely new type of shutter for digital and manufacturers just kept using their old shutters. Again that is just a hunch/guess with no proof to back it up.

Bob

[GeneW]

I've read that when DSLR's are designed, depending on the parts and what they're made of, the shutter is rated at an estimated number of actuations before breaking. Entry level units generally have a lower number number because the materials aren't as strong. Higher level and pro level models have a very high number.

You can usually get the rated number from the tech department of your camera brand.

Gene

[PeterW]

I’m guessing too because I’m more familiar with warranties in the car field than in the camera field but I imagine the same principles apply, as they probably do in any domestic and industrial appliances.

Warranty claims cost manufacturers money so naturally they want to reduce them and, at the same time, offer a more attractive warranty than competitors.

This means, as far as possible, keeping track of the product after it’s sold because no matter how much pre-production testing is carried out, only service in the field will tell how reliable each of the hundreds of parts is going to be.

My guess is that makers of high-end digital cameras introduced electronic recording of the number of shutter actuations firstly because the technology was there so why not make use of it, and secondly to keep track of and sort out any weak points and, as far as possible, eliminate them in production.

Let’s suppose, as a simple example, that too many cameras were being taken back to a main agent, or sent to the factory, under warranty because a switch was giving problems. It would probably be cheaper to gold plate the contacts in production to give them longer life than strip the camera and replace the switch on those that failed inside the warranty period.

I think a count of the number of shutter actuations was introduced by makers as a means of keeping track of warranty failures. I also think that back at the factory a database relates the number of shutter actuations and the age of the camera.

With old fashioned mechanical cameras things like motor drives and mechanical leaf shutters can give problems because bearings dry out, hence the need for a CLA. Digital cameras have things like servo motors where, possibly, bearings can dry out and the motor becomes sluggish. All this has to be balanced against technological advance and obsolescence. How many years before the camera become yesterday’s low-value technology?

Inevitably, consumers learned about shutter actuation recording , and before long programs to enable the user to read this number became available. Quite possibly before long there will be programs whereby the chip recording can be altered – just like turning back the odometer on a high-mileage car.

At the moment I think shutter actuation count is being used by dealers and ebay merchants as a sales gimmick, a use for which it was never intended. If I were buying a secondhand DSLR I would pay as much if not more attention to general condition, the way it felt and sounded in operation and any ‘blind spots’ on the sensor from inexpert cleaning than I would to how many thousands of times the release button had been pressed.

Let’s keep a sense of balance about things.

PeterW

[Deleted]

On Nikon the entry level DSLRs as usually rated at something like 50,000 actuations. The more pricey models (D300, etc) are rated at 150,000 actuations or more. Like any estimate of that type, however, you mileage may vary. I think I have about 12,000 on my D300 now but I'm not a super heavy shooter. I can go pn a two week trip to Europe and shoot 1,000 pictures while some guys claim they shoot that many on one day of a vacation! Don't know WHY they would do that but they insist they do.

I think Peter is right that the main reason cameras have that feature is so the mfg can use the data as part of repair research.

BTW: Hi, Gene!

[mickeyobe]

April 21, 2010
Today my Pentax K100d is 2 years and one month old.
As of this day the shutter has been snapped/actuated 7002 times. That is 3,500 pictures per year.
That is also equivalent to 194.5 rolls of 36 exposure Fujichrome 100, my preferred film.
I could never have afforded to shoot anywhere near that many pictures with my Canon T90.
Indeed, it would probably have taken me 30 to 40 years or more to take that many pictures.
I have approximately 10,000 slides shot over a period of 50 years - 200 photos per year.

Digital photography has freed me from the severe constraints of budgeting my hobby.

So if the Pentax should expire tomorrow I will have received much more than my money's worth and would have no complaints.

Therefore, tomorrow, I am going out to increase the camera's actuations.

I am really living it up! Thanks to digital.

Mickey

[PeterW]

Mickey,

No doubt about it. The quality of digital pictures today has freed photographers from cost restraint and a guilty feeling of wasting money on film and processing trying out different viewpoints etc. We can all afford to be a little more "experimental". If we don't like the results of the experiment, instant results, we can just delete it.



Long may your Pentax continue to function faultlessly.

PeterW

[GeneW]

Mickey, I'm with you 100%.

Digital photography re-ignited my interest in photography. I learned more, faster, with a digicam than I ever did with film cameras, mainly because I could afford to experiment and to try out slight variants of angle and perspective.

As cameras, the digitals don't give me as much aesthetic pleasure as the classic metal and glass film cameras and lenses, but they make up for it in convenience.

Gene