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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
How long will my camera last?
Jean Finley, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Iowa City | IA | USA | Posted: 5:05 PM on 03.18.09 |
->> I'm not concerned right now with getting the latest, greatest model on the showroom floor. What I am worried about is trying to predict when my camera will die of old age. It's a D-200. I shoot alot of sports and haven't really worried about how often I push that button.
What can I expect? |
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Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 5:16 PM on 03.18.09 |
->> There is no answer other than it will last until it breaks.
I belive the shutter on a D200 is rated for 150,000 clicks but that doesn't mean its not going to break before 149,999, nor does it mean its going to break on shot 150,001. Its just an average and thats just one thing that could go wrong.
There could be any number of other things that could go wrong on the camera, or maybe it will go half a million frame, or you could trip and drop it tommorow.
Shutters are the most common thing to wear out on a camera body though and should at least get you into the ballpark.
If I had a body that was rated for 150,000 frames and was at 200,000, I would probably replace it if it was my only camera because the changes of the shutter blowing out on me at a bad time are increased. |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 5:21 PM on 03.18.09 |
->> I replaced the shutter on my D200 at 35K clicks. Had a circuit go bad at about 11 months. This was for my #3 backup/remote body that saw almost no use. I wasn't impressed. One of my shooters had Mid-State replace his shutter with less than 60K on it.
Not the best body that I've had. |
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Kevin Leas, Photographer, Assistant
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Rochester | NY | USA | Posted: 6:39 PM on 03.18.09 |
->> Rater shutter counts, in my experience, are useless.
A number of photographers I know have had their shutters go tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of frames past the rating before they ran into any problems. My 1D Mark II, which I believe is rated at 150,000, died after only 68k - less than half of that. So if it were me, I wouldn't worry about it at all.
Trying to extend the life of your camera is a horrible reason not to press the shutter; who knows what images you'll lose forever by never making them in the first place. |
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Kevin Leas, Photographer, Assistant
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Rochester | NY | USA | Posted: 6:40 PM on 03.18.09 |
| ->> And of course, the first word of my posted should have said "rated". I need thinner fingers, and the patience to proofread my posts before hitting the final submit button. |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 7:22 PM on 03.18.09 |
->> The failure numbers as based on the statistic, Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF.) That means if you test five cameras and one fails after 5 actuations, the second at 100, the third at 3,000, the fourth at 100,000 and the fifth one at 7,000,000, the MTBF would be 3,000. In other words, the "mean" is the number in the center of the sample -- it may or may not be similar to the average.
Of course, MTBF calculations are typically based on much larger samples and are more representative of a reasonable expectation. But you could still have a camera from an extreme end of the curve.
--Mark |
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Erik Markov, Photographer
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Kokomo | IN | | Posted: 7:47 PM on 03.18.09 |
->> Here's where the old theory of buying a car comes in. It used to be the car sticker would tell you the exact day and date your car was built. There are those who used to say never buy a car made on a Friday because the guys on the line were looking forward to the weekend, and never buy a car made on a Monday because the guys were hung over from the weekend. Of course it's pretty much hogwash and doesn't really prove anything, but for anyone who bought a car on one of those two days, if it broke that's what they blamed it, never mind how the owner treated it.
Same goes for cameras. Buy them, use them, treat them well, but don't sweat the fact if it gets some abuse, its all part of using the item to enjoy life, make money and have a good time.
Course there are probably those that say never hire a photog for a Monday or Friday shoot. ;) |
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Kirby Yau, Photographer, Assistant
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San Diego | CA | USA | Posted: 8:06 PM on 03.18.09 |
| ->> December 23, 2012 |
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Greg Francis, Photographer
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Rochester | NY | USA | Posted: 8:54 PM on 03.18.09 |
->> I purchased a used D1x in 1/03, it's shutter blew in 8/08 with approx. 450,000 clicks.
I was on the first shipment of D2x's in 3/05, same simultaneous use alongside the D1x, and the D2x shutter blew in 11/07, 2.5 years after it was new. And the D1x outlasted it.
No rhyme or reason with the shutters. |
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Ian L. Sitren, Photographer
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Palm Springs | CA | USA | Posted: 11:53 PM on 03.18.09 |
| ->> If you only have one body, you can expect it to die when you are out on your best shoot ever, getting paid more for it than you have ever been paid before. |
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Ronnie Montgomery, Photographer
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Houston | TX | USA | Posted: 1:29 AM on 03.19.09 |
->> Mark,
First, you are confusing mean and median. Median is the middle number. Mean is the average. The "mean" in MTBF means (no pun intended) average.
Second, the MTBF calculation is more complicated than your example illustrates. MTBF assumes that the failed unit, or part since we are talking shutters, is replaced when it fails. In your example there isn't enough data to compute the MTBF since there is no data on how many more times the four units that didn't make it to 7,000,000 actuations had to be repaired to get those cameras to make it to 7,000,000 actuations.
Allow me to modify your example to illustrate how the calculation is done. Given five cameras that we operate for 10,000 actuations where we replace each shutter as it fails to allow each camera to make it to the 10,000 mark. And given that we observe:
Camera 1's shutter fails at 100, 2500, and 7000 actuations (3 failures)
Camera 2's shutter fails at 500, and 4200 actuations (2 failures)
Camera 3's shutter fails at 7000 actuations. (1 failure)
Camera 4's shutter fails at 3200 and 9000 actuations (2 failures)
Camera 5 doesn't fail at all (0 failures)
MTBF = 5 * 10000 / (3 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 0)
MTBF = 6250
The rest of this isn't directed at Mark's comments but is meant to add to folk's enlightenment.
It is easy to misinterpret what MTBF means. It doesn't mean that on average a unit will last until the MTBF number. The probability that a given unit will last a given amount of time (t), actuations in this case, is:
e raised to the power of (-t / MTBF)
The probability that a given unit will work as long as its MTBF is about 37% (e raised to the power of -1). Another way to state that is that there is a 37% confidence level that the unit will work as long as its MTBF. |
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N. Scott Trimble, Photographer
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Lake Oswego | OR | USA | Posted: 2:33 AM on 03.19.09 |
->> Damn. That reminds me a few years ago Someone hit my car while I was in the median. We got out of our cars to exchange information, but jeez
He was pretty mean. |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 7:07 AM on 03.19.09 |
->> Ronnie is correct. "MTBF" is a technical application of the mean, one of the three basic measures of central tendency: mean, median, and mode. Statistics 101.
I knew being a math major would come in handy one day! |
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Chuck Liddy, Photographer
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Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 11:05 AM on 03.19.09 |
->> ronnie, thanks for giving me a headache.
note to self: steer clear of math discussions early in the morning. 8) |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 11:35 AM on 03.19.09 |
| ->> So THAT'S what they were teaching that day I was too hammered to get up. Mrs. Wilks WAS right someday I WAS going to look back and remember missing that class. |
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Jeff Stanton, Photographer
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Princeton | IN | USA | Posted: 11:55 AM on 03.19.09 |
| ->> Jean, I'll do you and everybody else here a favor by not adding any math calculations to my response. It's actually useless. If you're that worried about shutter failure, it's an easy problem to solve. Have a second body that you can rely on that will provide similar if not better results than what you have now. Now you can sleep at night. |
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Ronnie Montgomery, Photographer
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Houston | TX | USA | Posted: 12:35 PM on 03.19.09 |
| ->> Sure, kill the messenger. |
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Kolman Rosenberg, Photographer
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Mentor | OH | USA | Posted: 6:16 PM on 03.19.09 |
| ->> Nothing I have read rates the D200 shutter at 150,000 actuations. The highest I've seen stated is 100,000. |
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Mark Goldman, Photographer
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Silver Spring | MD | USA | Posted: 7:37 PM on 03.19.09 |
| ->> You can expect that one day you will push the shutter and it will no longer work. |
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Vagelis Grigoropoulos, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Veria | Imathia | Greece | Posted: 5:29 AM on 03.20.09 |
| ->> I used the D200 extensively until last year that i upgraded to the D3. My D200 died (shutter failure) at 120.000 actuations during the European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship in Torino, Italy. What a nightmare! I had it replaced at Nikon and costed me 300 Euros |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 2:59 PM on 03.20.09 |
->> Ronnie,
Thanks for the correction. Statistics class was a long time ago.
--Mark |
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Jeff Brehm, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Charlotte | NC | USA | Posted: 4:24 PM on 03.20.09 |
->> Ronnie:
I was sure you would get a lot of "Huh?s" from this group. I felt like I was watching Mr. Peabody explaining something to Sherman.
For those of you about to give ME a "Huh?" for that obscure reference, go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Peabody |
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Marc F. Henning, Photographer
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Bentonville | AR | USA | Posted: 4:58 PM on 03.20.09 |
->> FWIW my Canon 1D is still clicking away on its original shutter. i used the body daily from July 2002 til about mid 2008. its use is now limited to basketball when shooting with strobes due to its 1/500th shutter speed. i still can't believe the shutter hasn't blown on it. it has to be at least 100,000 clicks beyond the shutter's expected lifespan.
marc |
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