EOS 10D

[Lin Evans]

Though some 10D's have lasted for 50,000 plus acutations, I would think that 35-40K actuations would be more like a normal life span. The 1D & 1DS are rated for 150,000 actuations and the new 1D Mark II for 200,000 actuations.

Though you may get many more, the D30, D60, 10D, & Digital Rebel are not likely to give you any where nearly as many actuations as the pro-level models.

Maybe Chuck can comment here - but I've not seen actual shutter release ratings for the 10D, but assume it's about the same as the D30/D60.

[Roger_Cavanagh]

I'll add a question to the question - is there a way, besides going to a service centre, of finding out how many shutter cycles your camera (in this casa a 10D) has gone through?

Not for the 10D there isn't. This is from Chuck Westfall, Canon US.

I haven't seen anything offical about the rated actuations, but based on different bits of info', my guess would be the 10D shutter is rated for 50K cycles.

Regards,

[Aaron Bredon]

Thanks for the replies.  I just recently found out through another website that the Tim Grey Digital Newsletter (Lepp Institute of Digital Photography) recently stated that the MTBF (mean time before failure) of the 10d is 50,000 shutter actuations.  The 1Ds and MK2 are tested for 150,000 to 200,000.

MTBF is actually Mean Time Between Failures and a figure of 50,000 uses means that the odds of the shutter failing during each exposure is 1/50,000 per use during the expected life of the camera.
Specifically, if you had 50,000 cameras and fired all of them at the same time, on average one camera's shutter would fail each firing.

The odds of failure go up after the manufacturer's expected life of the camera. (It is possible that you could have a MTBF of 50,000 uses and an expected lifetime of 5,000 uses with a dramatically increased likelyhood of failure after 5,000 uses, such that the shutter would on average last only 8,000 shutter releases, but this rarely happens - usually the MTBF and expected life are pretty close to each other.)

[Aaron Bredon]

Specifically, if you had 50,000 cameras and fired all of them at the same time, on average one camera's shutter would fail each firing.

Well actually it doen't mean that at all. It indicates that the arithmetic MEAN or "average" time to shutter failure is 50k cycles. This is the statistical average. All of the failures could be tightly clustered about the mean or more distributed. And there could be more above or below the mean (average) depending on distribution.

But in no way is one camera in 50,000 likely to fail for each incremental integer of cycles. And I'm not willing to debate this. You have spoken incorrectly.

You are partially right - I should have qualified and said that if you fired the 50,000 cameras for the for the manufacturer's expected lifetime, you would have an average failure of 1 shutter per 50,000 shutter presses. Since the MTBF and the expected lifetime may diverge, the expected usable life of the shutter MAY be significanly different from the MTBF - i.e. you could have a significant increase in the number of failures approaching and past the expected lifetime and much less earlier on, but over the expected lifetime, the failure rate would be around 1 out of every 50,000 presses.

It does NOT mean that the average shutter lasts 50,000 releases UNLESS the expected lifetime is greater than or equal to 50,000 releases.
Definition:
Mean-Time-Between-Failure (MTBF). A basic measure of reliability for repairable items: The mean number of life units during which all parts of the item perform within their specified limits, during a particular measurement interval under stated conditions.

Unless you know the specific measurement interval and conditions, you can't be sure of what a given MTBF means.

[SDC]

I have an opportunity to buy a used EOS 10D for $1400 Cdn. with approximately 25,000 exposures on it.  Should I be concerned with the fairly substantial number of shutter cycles on it, or is the 10D made to last for up to 150,000 cycles.  Thanks for any knowledgeable responses on this subject.

[jd1566]

I'll add a question to the question - is there a way, besides going to a service centre, of finding out how many shutter cycles your camera (in this casa a 10D) has gone through?

[SDC]

Thanks for the replies.  I just recently found out through another website that the Tim Grey Digital Newsletter (Lepp Institute of Digital Photography) recently stated that the MTBF (mean time before failure) of the 10d is 50,000 shutter actuations.  The 1Ds and MK2 are tested for 150,000 to 200,000.

[boku]

Specifically, if you had 50,000 cameras and fired all of them at the same time, on average one camera's shutter would fail each firing.

Well actually it doen't mean that at all. It indicates that the arithmetic MEAN or "average" time to shutter failure is 50k cycles. This is the statistical average. All of the failures could be tightly clustered about the mean or more distributed. And there could be more above or below the mean (average) depending on distribution.

But in no way is one camera in 50,000 likely to fail for each incremental integer of cycles. And I'm not willing to debate this. You have spoken incorrectly.

[boku]

Err..

In this case, MTBF means Mean Time BEFORE Failure.

Once the shutter fails, its toast. It doesn't start working for another 50,000 exposures.

I'm outta here.

[Aaron Bredon]

Err..

In this case, MTBF means Mean Time BEFORE Failure.

Once the shutter fails, its toast. It doesn't start working for another 50,000 exposures.

I'm outta here.

Are you saying that shutters can't be repaired?
As far as I know a failed shutter can often be repaired - if the cause of the failure is a broken spring, you can replace the spring and the shutter will start working again.