Shutter rating - what does it mean?

[kaelaria]

When they say the shutter is rated for 100,000 exposures, for example...what exactly does that mean?  Is it going to break after a certain point, actually malfunction?  Does it start behaving differently?  I always thought those ratings were HUGE numbers, something that I would never dream of hitting.  But now that I am getting out at least once a week for a dedicated photography practice session, I'm going through a couple thousand frames a week.  I've had my 30D less than 2 weeks now and just tripped 5000.  At this rate, I'll be at it's magic number next year at the most.  What then exactly?

[DarkPenguin]

Shutters have a life span.  You should be able to expect to fire it 100,000 times before it breaks.  (Partially or fully black images are usually your first clue.)  How soon it will break is any ones guess.

I think the original digital rebel was rated at 10,000 exposures.

Imagine how many rolls of film you would have to shoot to hit 100,000 or even 10,000 exposures.  It seems like a short lifespan with digital but in film terms 100,000 is huge.

[kaelaria]

I don't recall what the 300D was rated for, but I know I put about 30,000 through mine flawlessly over 3 years.

OK, so has anyone had one fail?  What happened and how did you fix it?  I assume it's a relatively cheap fix through Canon?

With the perported Pro level here I would expect the limit of these pro-sumer bodies to be hit by some of you guys in a few months!

[dwdallam]

When they say the shutter is rated for 100,000 exposures, for example...what exactly does that mean?  Is it going to break after a certain point, actually malfunction?  Does it start behaving differently?  I always thought those ratings were HUGE numbers, something that I would never dream of hitting.  But now that I am getting out at least once a week for a dedicated photography practice session, I'm going through a couple thousand frames a week.  I've had my 30D less than 2 weeks now and just tripped 5000.  At this rate, I'll be at it's magic number next year at the most.  What then exactly?
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I have no idea how you can seriously review and learn from 2500 images in two weeks. As I become more "pro" and less "prosumer" I find myself taking less images, and getting better pictures. I've been shooting with my 5D for about 2 months, after having a 20D for a year, and have only taken around 2, 000 images maximum, and I shoot nearly everyday, plus that includes play images (snapshots) . I'm at a point in my life that if I wanted, I could shoot images and think about photography 24-7, but I doubt I could, would, or could justify shooting 5, 000 images in two weeks.

In any event, your shutter will break in time. You send it in to Canon and they repair it. No big deal.

[jani]

I have no idea how you can seriously review and learn from 2500 images in two weeks. As I become more "pro" and less "prosumer" I find myself taking less images, and getting better pictures.

I would say that this is exactly how you can seriously review and learn from 2500 images in two weeks.

Or to put it in other words: the experience will tell you a lot about what you do wrong, where you were too quick, where you just took an image in the hope that you might rescue it in post-processing (and in post-processing, you learn that you in 90-99% of the cases, you can't), and so on, until you realise that the solution is to take fewer images, but with more care.

I'd call it a simple learning curve.

I'm still learning, but now I'm taking very, very few images, unless I'm exploring a new technique that I haven't even tried before. Then I take - comparatively - lots of images, and learn from them, again.

[kaelaria]

Exactly!  I'm taking a lot of shots LEARNING both how to use the new body, how to use my new macro lens, how to apply new techniques as I learn them, etc.  Oh, I'm sorry I'm not perfect like you, dwdallam, and only need to take 5 shots a week because they are all pro gallery quality from the start     I on the other hand never claimed to be pro or anywhere near it, so yes, I take a lot of shots.  2 weeks ago I went to the Botanical gardens for 3 hours filling my 8 gigs worth of cards.  This weekend it was the Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park.  Next weekend I'm planning on the everglades for another airboat tour.  I'm going to take as many shots as I can carry home, to hone my technique, learn from my mistakes (which heavily outnumber anything approaching good) and if I'm lucky, come back with a couple shots worth printing and hanging on my walls at home.  The point being, everytime I get more and more 'good' shots that aren't blurred, at the wrong exposure, have the wrong DOF, have something in frame I didn't notice when I took it, have the subject in the wrong position, etc.  Every session I get better.  Will I take less pictures each trip next year as opposed to this?  Probably, but if I still take 600 a day, maybe I'll just have more keepers from the bunch because I practiced.

[russell a]

It's an axiom that it's the quality of practice that is more important than the quantity.  However, if one can do the analysis, doing more rather than fewer should be beneficial.  W. Eugene Smith took 17000 photos for his Pittsburgh project of which he thought 2000 were of "posterity" grade.  Of course his habit was to conduct extensive camera-less reconnaissance before starting in.  Gary Winogrand averaged 3 rolls of 36 exposure film a day for 30 years.  Do the math.  Winogrand's apartment had stacks of proof prints and he would analyze them at length with whomever was willing.  His last 500,000 included shooting from a moving vehicle with a motorized back and his hit ratio plummeted to near zero as far as the record indicates. On the other hand, for Winogrand "being there" resulted in an amazing body of work.  Some photographers do a lot of pre-planning and thinking before and at the site, others shoot from the hip.  Whatever works for you.  I frequently make two or even three trips (if a subject is static) to a scene as I learn more about how I want to treat a subject.

[kaelaria]

And you know what - the specific quantity is also relative.  8GB a day might be a lot to some, just right to me, and scratchig the surface to others.  No matter the number, it doesn't make anyone better than anyone else - just different.  My skill level (and everyone else's) at a given point is what it is, regardless of how many shots I happen to take at a given moment.  It takes a certain amount of time and practice to learn whatever it is you are going after.  I try to use each scene I encounter to the best of my ability.  Sometimes I can work on my DOF, sometimes I can work on my composition, sometimes my multiple exposure, sometimes my exposure compensation, sometimes my backlighting or fill flash technique, macro, shutter speed relative to handholding, aperture selection, use of the lens to it's best potential, tripod use, how my bag is organized, what I'm wearing, strap position, the list goes on, and on.  And yup, for me, taking a few hundred shots when I can to work on as much as I can is what works best for me - nothing wrong with that.

[kaelaria]

For example here's 3 frames so far (I have not finished processing the batch) from this last trip, where I practiced backlit exposure (boy), DOF (gator) and composition/cropping (water).  I took about 10 frames for each trying different techniques.  Next time, yes it may be a little less for those specific situations - but I'll have more things to work on too

[macgyver]

Try shooting college sports.  1000 frames in 4 hours anyone?

[DarkPenguin]

Or motor sports.  Trying to get rooster tails just so in Rally racing takes a lot of machine gunning.

[kaelaria]

Wow, you guys must be TOTAL NEWBS THEN!  LOL!

[macgyver]

Wow, you guys must be TOTAL NEWBS THEN!  LOL!
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Apparently.  (although, I would agree that the better I get at something the less I shoot it.)

Oh, and I have more than 35,000 on my 300D, and it still works perfectly.

[howiesmith]

When they say the shutter is rated for 100,000 exposures, for example...what exactly does that mean?  Is it going to break after a certain point, actually malfunction?  Does it start behaving differently?  I always thought those ratings were HUGE numbers, something that I would never dream of hitting.  But now that I am getting out at least once a week for a dedicated photography practice session, I'm going through a couple thousand frames a week.  I've had my 30D less than 2 weeks now and just tripped 5000.  At this rate, I'll be at it's magic number next year at the most.  What then exactly?
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Your shutter is mechanical and will break (malfunction) at some point for sure.  It depends how the shutter life is actually rated.  It could be that only 0.1% (for example) should be expected to fail at 100,000 trips,  100,000 could be the average number, or something else.  Even if expected to last 100,000 trips, a shutter could fail at 1, a hundred, a thousand, or what evre number.  I keep hearing of a light bulb that has been on in some fire house in Cleveland for 60 years.  Not your "average" bulb.

I would be surprised if the "average" Canon shutter were expected to fail in a year or so of average use.  I'm sure I will be corrected if wrong, but I think warranties are for a fixed time period (1 year for example), not 100,000 trips.  And the warranty may not cover "pro" very high use.  I don't think 100,000 trips is average use.  That is about 275 trips each and every day (more that 10 an hour 24/7) for a year.  That's lot in my opinion.  

I have shutters that are over 20 years old, and still work fine, but may have well less tha 100,000 trips.  I do get them "maintained" once in a while though.  "Maintained" means checked, cleaned lubed and timed.

If you really care what that number means (and whether it is an actual Canon nymber), I would ask Canon.

[kaelaria]

Thanks for the insight, I appreciate it.

[bing]

"Dad iam sure that guys shutter sounds knackered"

[Dennishh]

After the one year warranty is up there's no more coverage on the shutter, so what difference does it make what its rated at? I just had my 1DsMK2 shutter replaced after two years of advertising shoots for $300.00 and got the firewire plug replaced and sensor cleaned. Not bad!
Dennis

[mahleu]

The shutter life given is a minimum, worst case figure. If they quote
500 000 and you get 400 000 then they're going to get lots of complaints,
they have to set it low. Just like the sell by date on food

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Somehow this discussion reminds me of comments made by an engineer friend of mine many years ago. The question was: "If you want to start a fire (or light a stove, cigaret, etc.), which is better to have: a new, unused match, or one that has already been used?"

My engineer firend's answer was, "Obviously, the used match. It's been tested, so you know it can work; whereas the new match has never been properly tested, so you can't know if it will work."    

But I'm ornery. I still prefer a camera whose total shutter life isn't yet known.

Eric

[howiesmith]

Somehow this discussion reminds me of comments made by an engineer friend of mine many years ago. The question was: "If you want to start a fire (or light a stove, cigaret, etc.), which is better to have: a new, unused match, or one that has already been used?"

My engineer firend's answer was, "Obviously, the used match. It's been tested, so you know it can work; whereas the new match has never been properly tested, so you can't know if it will work."     

But I'm ornery. I still prefer a camera whose total shutter life isn't yet known.

Eric
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This has much more to do with the "expected" life.  I agree, who wants a shutter that has been used 400,000 times?  A match has a life expectancy of a little less than one fire.  But I would guess never more than 1.

Any shutter, new or old, can fail the next time, or not.   But if a shutter lasts 5,000 or so tomes, it likely has a good expectancy of 100,000 times.

Wouldn't you rather know what to expect?  Apparently not.

Life expectany is interesting.  If the life expectancy of a new born is 40 years, it doesn't mean that if a person is 39.9 years old, they better not buy any green bananas.  It can mean that if a person makes it past 20 years, they might expect to live a very long time.

The life expectancy of a shutter that has worked 200,000 times is greater than one that has worked twice.  They probability of failure of the 200,000 times shutter during its first 200,000 trips is 0.  The newer shutter, has an expected failure rate greater than 0.

I don't think a shutter, like the used match, is a good deal either if it has been tested to death.  But I would prefer a match from a box that has 995 matches left and the first 5 worked first try.  That migh be better than an untested box. If a shutter is expected to go 100,000 times, I would give it a few "trials" to see if it would go once.