Shutter life: how many frames is ok for an SLR?

[AgX]

It is the question what we are talking about. Just the plain focal-plane shutter or including its cocking mechanism and the mirror mechanics too? With them failing a working shutter is useless.

The same for any minor fault that blocks the use of a camera. What use is a shutter that in the lab runs for hundred of thousands periods but the camera fails after one day at the beach due to one tiny, tiny grain of sand blocking one button and draining the battery to death?
I mean this is a rather academic discussion. (Nothing wrong about that, but we should have that in mind.)

 

[benjiboy]

In the case of the Canon F1 100,000 cycles http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/canonf1n/shutter/reliable.htm

 

[kb244]

At least compared to our modern cameras now days, there's at least someone that you can send most of the cameras off to to have the camera CLA'd and shutter repaired, re-curtained, or whatever.

The question should be, if my [insert specific model] camera dies, who can repair it, and how much? In the case of my Canon 7... apparently not anyone I could find will touch it, but a Canon P or earlier, just bout anyone who services Leica-style screw mount cameras (including the shutter).

Reliability numbers are going to be pretty useless in the sense of vintage cameras, or cameras in which you have no clue what their history is, and as others have said, there's a number of things that may fail before the shutter itself finally fails (half the time it seems they just need a cleaning, especially leaf-style shutters).

 

[trythis]

Two shutters that I had fail:
Zenit 12xp after 2 frames the ribbons came off and a IIIB canon range finder that was dried out, patched with a sun burned hole.
My Nikon F3 looks like it was used by a war correspondant but that shutter works fine.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Can this even be generally determined or does it depend on the individual model and manufacturer?

Thanks!

I bought used Nikons from a pro whoa used them up to 1 million exposures.They were FMs and are still working now 20 years later! Doesn't seem to be a big concern.

 

[EdColorado]

The question should be, if my [insert specific model] camera dies, who can repair it, and how much? In the case of my Canon 7... apparently not anyone I could find will touch it, but a Canon P or earlier, just bout anyone who services Leica-style screw mount cameras (including the shutter).

That's interesting Karl. I would have thought a Canon 7 would fall in the area of a classic mechanical design, that most old school repair shops would be happy to take on. Did anyone give you any specifics on why they didn't want to work on it?

 

[wiltw]

I don't think that the number of times a shutter is operated with us film photographers. It is some of the digi guys, who think nothing of fireing off 40+ exposures on a single subject just in case something has moved. We are more selective! The Nikon F6 I use has a readout on a small back view window that tells me how many films have been through the camera. With my camera which I bought 'used' with around 150 films through the camera. it now is showing 243 (About a years worth) and the films used were mostly 24 exps so not an accurate record of the number of exposures. I estimate the total number of exposures my camera has done is somewhere betwen 5832 and 8748 give or take a couple of hundred. So by Nikon standards it is almost unused. Whilst I do not expect the camera to give as long a sevice as say a Nikon F2, I don't expect any bother too soon.

^
Canon dSLRs mention shutter lifes of 100k for the entry level stuff, 150k for the 'prosumer', and 200k for the professional grade top of line stuff. 150k shutter actuations, at 36 shots per roll, is 4166 rolls of film (with the expense of film and processing and printing). However, a guy named Oleg Kikin has some shutter life statistics on his website, and while the stastical peak for amateur dSLR camera shutter failure is about 15k-35k, there are amatuer cameras still alive in the 150k range and 500k-1M range!

The digital machine gunners commonly put 25k shots thru in a single year! One guy wrote, "I shoot anywhere from 6,000-10,000 images per weekend event." He burns thru a Canon 1Dn shutter in one year, assuming he shoots 25 weekends per year!

 

[LeftCoastKid]

My Nikon Fs all developed shuttter bounce, and so did my freind"s.

As did my late father's F1s (original); after several years of multiple servicing, he set the two aside, and used his FTb exclusively.

 

[LeftCoastKid]

Back when I bought my F4 new I was told that Nikon guaranteed their shutters for 50,000 trip cycles for amateur/user cameras and 100,000 trip cycles for pro level cameras.
Such technical information has been removed from current web sites.

If memory serves, all Nikon's pro-level cameras (i.e. the F-series) were tested/expected to function for a minimum of 150,00 cycles.

 

[Leigh B]

Can this even be generally determined or does it depend on the individual model and manufacturer?

I think it depends very much on the manufacturer.

When I was repairing Nikons for the press corps in Washington DC I only saw a couple of bad shutters, and those had been poked.

The numbers we got from Nikon were 100,000 shots before they would wear out. I had no opportunity to confirm that.

- Leigh

 

[kb244]

That's interesting Karl. I would have thought a Canon 7 would fall in the area of a classic mechanical design, that most old school repair shops would be happy to take on. Did anyone give you any specifics on why they didn't want to work on it?

Mostly what other people had said in response, the actual technicians just simply say they don't work on them. Seems like because it has electronics (meter), by my meter is fine, it's the frame lines and what not that could use a bit of love. So far I've fixed it myself to be usable even if my frame line is about 20% too far to the right of the actual picture with a slight 2 degree tilt, but since it's not sliding around anymore I know what to compensate for.

But would love to just send it off to give it a work over. The top portion of the camera is a bit more complicated than the Canon P. Meter seems spot on already (which kind of surprised for an old selenium).

 

[removed-user-1]

I think electronics fail more often than shutters. Nothing scientific in my assertion, just an observation. I have several cameras that are 50+ years old, from rangefinders to point-and-shoots to folders to SLRs, none of which have been serviced as far as I know. The ones that don't work have usually been abused (dropped, dunked, batteries allowed to leak, camera taken apart and put back together wrong, etc).

 

[Leigh B]

The problem with working on old cameras is that parts are no longer available.

I doubt that Nikon still has parts for any model older than the F3.
If they do, they will only sell them to authorized Nikon service shops.

Mechanical assemblies will last forever if properly designed and manufactured.
We still use machine tools in industry that were built 50 to 100 years ago, and they still meet spec.
My 60 year old Monarch lathe still puts out work to tighter tolerance than many new machines.

- Leigh

 

[wiltw]

The problem with working on old cameras is that parts are no longer available...
My 60 year old Monarch lathe still puts out work to tighter tolerance than many new machines.

I think electronics fail more often than shutters.

And modern cameras are so dependent upon customized integrated circuits, that the hope of anyone fixing them becomes hopeless as the supply of donor cameras goes to oblivion. At least it is possible for mechanical assemblies to have new parts fabricated, or existing pieces to be modified to suit...not so with electronics, when it is not simple electronic parts like resistors and capacitors. I dare say an EOS 1Ds will be dead and in a junk heap before the EOS1N and that in the junk heap before the Canon A1, for that reason.

As a young teen, I lusted for a Topcon Super D, but it was unattainably priced at $420 (the same price as Nikon F) in an era when a gallon of gas was $0.30 and the median annual income in the U.S. was $6569. 50 years later, I found one in a thrift store, at $25, it was an instant sale even not knowing if anything still functioned! I took it home, ran a series of exposures at all shutter speeds (adjusting lens aperture) and all the frames were consistent in density. I acquired three more Super D's and all of their shutters tested consistent across all shutter speeds as well! Two of the meters are dead; two of the self timers don't properly trigger the shutter. But the shutters themselves and the timing mechanism are all fine, after 50 years! And I have four objects of my teenage camera lust.

 

[kb244]

The problem with working on old cameras is that parts are no longer available.

I doubt that Nikon still has parts for any model older than the F3.
If they do, they will only sell them to authorized Nikon service shops.

Mechanical assemblies will last forever if properly designed and manufactured.
We still use machine tools in industry that were built 50 to 100 years ago, and they still meet spec.
My 60 year old Monarch lathe still puts out work to tighter tolerance than many new machines.

- Leigh

And yet cameras older than my 7 have a fair number of people to work on them So probably not just age but other factors.

 

[Leigh B]

I wonder what your opinion is of the Nikkormat FT series cameras. I am of the opinion that they are Nikon's unintended "flagship" camera.

I think they're good cameras, well-built and reliable.

I seldom saw one since I was servicing working pros who shot F2 and F3 models.
I own a couple of them, although I haven't used them in years.

- Leigh

 

[Leigh B]

And modern cameras are so dependent upon customized integrated circuits, that the hope of anyone fixing them becomes hopeless as the supply of donor cameras goes to oblivion. At least it is possible for mechanical assemblies to have new parts fabricated, or existing pieces to be modified to suit...not so with electronics, when it is not simple electronic parts like resistors and capacitors. I dare say an EOS 1Ds will be dead and in a junk heap before the EOS1N and that in the junk heap before the Canon A1, for that reason.

That's certainly true.

Of course, any device that uses a solid-stage image sensor rather than film is a computer, not a camera.
Computers are obsolete and unrepairable after 5 or 10 years. Why should imaging systems be otherwise?

- Leigh

 

[CMoore]

^
The digital machine gunners commonly put 25k shots thru in a single year! One guy wrote, "I shoot anywhere from 6,000-10,000 images per weekend event." He burns thru a Canon 1Dn shutter in one year, assuming he shoots 25 weekends per year!

Good Grief.....if i shot 200 frames on a Saturday/Sunday, it would be a lot for me.
6k-10k.....HOW could you possibly even triage that many...??
What do they do, chain an assistant to the computer and make Them sift through all that stuff.?

 

[wiltw]

Good Grief.....if i shot 200 frames on a Saturday/Sunday, it would be a lot for me.
6k-10k.....HOW could you possibly even triage that many...??
What do they do, chain an assistant to the computer and make Them sift through all that stuff.?

100,000,000 chimps on typewriters, trying to create a Shakespearian work!

 

[Leigh B]

I submit that out of the 2 cameras in the photojournalist's bag, one being a Nikon and the other a Nikkormat as backup, that the Nikon actually played second fiddle most of the time.

Apparently different clientele.

We had guys walking in with $10K lenses. They only carried F2 or F3 bodies.

- Leigh

 

[Agulliver]

It's all about technique. If you are the type of shooter with digital who fires off in multi frame drive mode, then you can shoot thousands in a weekend.

I've certainly shot 900 photos with a DSLR on a trip to the zoo, but that was in the early days when I was kind of taken with the ability to waste frames. My strike rate in terms of the good:crud ratio was pretty poor. Now I peg my enthusiasm for taking 6 shots of everything or following a subject for several seconds shooting at 3fps or whatever. And I end up shooting maybe 1:3 or 1:4 ratio...sometimes better.

But this is why we get people today saying that photographing action sports is impossible on film. Of course it's possible, it just generally requires a different technique to photographing the same sport on film. With film you snipe...you watch the action through your lens and wait. Even then maybe your ratio of good:crud isn't fantastic but you get your handful of great images....probably just as many great images as you would scattergunning with a digital.

 

[Leigh B]

But this is why we get people today saying that photographing action sports is impossible on film

The reason they make such a claim is they don't know what they're doing.
You have to understand the action and shoot at the peak, to minimize subject motion.

50 years ago I was shooting basketball with a 4x5 press camera (no flash).
I got excellent results, and nobody could figure out how I did it.
I was shooting Kodak Super XX and developing in Acufine to get an astronomical speed.

- Leigh

 

[avb]

My F5 brochure ("Imported from the Future") says the F5's shutter is the "World's first self-diagnostic double-bladed shutter, tested to 150,000 cycles, featuring Nikon's exclusive Shutter Monitor".
My Nikon F100 brochure ("Professional performance redefined.") does not state a shutter test cycle amount. Maybe the F100 was tested later, not sure.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

John Walker, the spy who photographed U.S. Navy secrets for the Soviet Union, made at least 250,000 photos with his Minox C before the shutter failed.

It's not a simple shutter, either.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

The Canon F1 Titanium shutter is good according to the manufacturers for at least 150,000 exposures.

Zeiss Ikon claimed the prewar Contax shutter was good for 400,000 cycles. In 1936.