shutter life

[ni-conartist]

My main point concerns the report in the french photo

magazine "Chasseur d'image" about the EOS 3 shutter test (AP News 26

june) because it has been on the internet boards for some time and

has gone down like a lead balloon in most quarters.

 

At the time I could not understand why but I have since translated

that article and know why it has been kept quiet about, At least in

Canon circles.

 

 

Apparently, The article was really a testament to the Nikon shutter

because it was found that the shutter on the Nikon F100 failed after

130,000 operations, But kept accurate to within one third of a stop.

 

 

The Minolta Dynax 9 drifted after 50,000 frames by another one third

stop and failed after 80,000 frames.

 

 

The EOS 3 drifted after 70,000 by one half stop for every 10,000

frames thereafter and failed after 450,000.

 

 

The magazine concluded that the shutter on the EOS 3 would be

unusable after 110,000 operations due to excessive drift.

 

 

I think that's why Canon has stated 100,000 shutter use for its camera

[photojim]

I'm a huge Nikon fan and I'd love nothing more than for you to be right, but let's be fair: a sample of one camera means little. You'd have to test dozens to really get some meaningful data. All that C d'I has proved is that those shutters would fail.

 

If you took last Saturday as typical of Saskatchewan weather in October (it was sunny and 28 C) you'd have been sorely mislead. We've had snow this early in the year and 12 C would be a lot more normal.

[bob_katz1]

So you're saying the EOS 3 shutter was off by 19 stops by the time it finally failed? That's pretty much physically impossible - maybe you should brush up on your translation skills...

[ni-conartist]

im sorry i forgot to use " " this was a copy n paste im not the auther of this statement i just posted it to get responses. yeah that part about losing 1/2 a stop evey 10k frames seemed funny.

 

i also realize youd need to test multiple samples. but still these things should still be fairly consistant. id guess out of 10 f100 bodies, at least 8 or 9 should see 100k cycles.

[bob_katz1]

<i>"im sorry i forgot to use " " this was a copy n paste im not the auther of this statement i just posted it to get responses"</i><p>

Sounds more like you just made this up to get responses.

[jbq]

Yes, that's only one sample, the level of confidence you can get with only one sample isn't very high. You'd need a few dozen cameras to get reliable results. In this case, it would be very interesting to split them in two groups, one with no maintenance and one with maintenance every 10000 shots.

 

This being said, we're talking about being able to put 2200 or 3000 (36-exp) rolls through those cameras. I personally shoot color, I don't process my film myself, and my typical cost per roll typically varies between $4 and $7 a roll (film plus processing). At best we're talking about $8800 or $12000 of film+processing through those cameras before they die. That's typically 10 times the cost of the camera. Use pro film and have it processed at pro labs and those numbers double. Given those numbers, you can figure out that shooting with a Canon 1Ds is still cheaper than shooting film.

 

I'm personally not a pro. I shoot 20 rolls a month during "big" months, 5 to 10 rolls during a regular month. Even if the shutter on my bottom-of-the-range N55 dies after 20000 exposures, it's still good for about 5 years at my current rate. Not something that I'm worried about.

 

 

Let me put it another way. If my car failed after I put 10 times its value in gas through it, it would be good for two-and-a-half million miles ($25000, 20mpg, $2 per gallon).

[ni-conartist]

in response to the idiot comment by mr. katz ...here is the link i got the info from.

 

http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/mtbf.html

[lex_jenkins]

Keep in mind that "Bob Katz" might be a pseudonym for a bobcat-like troll. So far many of his barbed comments seem intended to provoke rather than inform.

 

If I'm wrong, well...it won't have been the first or last time.

[jbq]

Go to the page that Desmond quotes, scroll down. There are some actual quotes from the article (which is over 4 years old), along with translations by a native French speaker.

 

The Canon drifted by 1/5 EV up to 420000 exp. The F100 drifted by 1/10 EV up to 120000 exp. The Canon body was hence still perfectly usable after more than 400000 pictures. The Minolta, Nikon and Canon achieved respective totals of 82586, 130847 and 424477 exposures. So much for the article being a "testament to the Nikon shutter".

 

Further down the page is another comparison of low-end cameras, again by chasseur d'images. Canon, Minolta, Nikon, Pentax. Nikon dies first at 64k exposures, when the Minolta could be taken to 250k. All cameras had to be serviced at some point, and the Nikon was the most expensive to service (interestingly, the shutter did 29k before the first repair, then 35k afterward, not far from the 30000 number sometimes quoted for low-end Nikons). That article also fails to be a "testament to the Nikon shutter".

 

Conclusion: None. Our cameras are reliable. There aren't enough samples in either quoted study to get significant results. We'd better be out shooting pictures.

[richard_milner2]

If a shutter lasted 50,000 cycles, that is about 1,250 rolls of film (36 frame film.) Most amateur photographers probably shoot a roll a week (on average), so the theoretical 50,000-cycle shutter would last them about 25 years. I think that's pretty good value for money.

 

Very keen amateurs probably use up their cameras faster but they also probably change equipment more often because of other factors such as wanting to upgrade.

 

If you are a professional, you just figure the cost of more frequent replacement into your fee structure.