I commonly hit 300,000-400,000 in 6 months on all three of my MarkII-N bodies. My first body had 470,000 by the time I sent it in when it was 9 months old.
Every summer when things get slow, I send them off to CPS and get the shutters replaced to keep them going.
Hammy's experience almost suggests that the shutters last through more actuations if they are used frequently with lots of high speed bursts!
I don't see any reason off hand why that should be so, and I don't really think style of use is much of a factor.
It would be interesting to see a statistically fair compilation. I don't see how it could be done without requiring annual registrations of cameras the way we do with automobiles.
Just to add my 2 cents, I've never had a shutter failure with any pro-grade camera, including 5 of the "1" series (starting with a 1N film body). Also haven't reached as many as 50,000 clicks with any one of them (though certainly over 100k together).
As a follow up to my previous comment about the survey stats site.
After a closer look, I have come to the conclusion it is totally useless to attempt to determine the overall reliability of any model's shutter.
Just look at the sample size. There are a total of 13 dead & 22 live shutters ranging in shutter counts from 15k to over 380k. This is an insignificant sample size.
More importantly, the likelihood that a statistically significant group of camera owners are visiting this site and providing input is unlikely.
The more likely case is that more people with failed shutters will visit the site than those with good shutters.
So that whole attempt to apply some fancy statistical prediction to the data is a joke.
For this to have any relevance you would need to survey a larger group of camera owners of the models in question.
I suspect Canon has the data on failed shutters, total units shipped, possible camera production dates, etc. They are not going to share that with the public.
Now if your shutter has failed, then you might feel like Canon has a problem
My condolences
Photon wrote:
Hammy's experience almost suggests that the shutters last through more actuations if they are used frequently with lots of high speed bursts!
Actually, its only occasionally that we put through a sequence at high speed. Most of our shots are singles - just happens to be one per second for about two minutes, rest for 1-2 minutes, then hit another 100 shots in 2 minutes. Do this 6-14 hours a almost every weekend day for 6 months a year, and it easily adds up.
Hammy wrote:
Actually, its only occasionally that we put through a sequence at high speed. Most of our shots are singles - just happens to be one per second for about two minutes, rest for 1-2 minutes, then hit another 100 shots in 2 minutes. Do this 6-14 hours a almost every weekend day for 6 months a year, and it easily adds up.
Got ya.
Still, I would guess that the mechanism is built to handle sustained bursts, since they publicize the number of jpegs you can shoot before filling the buffer, and there are no cautions about allowing the camera to cool down in use - unlike with the speedlights, where they do caution about repeated full power bursts, especially when an auxiliary battery pack is used.
Hammy wrote:
It is I on the other side of the curve
I commonly hit 300,000-400,000 in 6 months on all three of my MarkII-N bodies. My first body had 470,000 by the time I sent it in when it was 9 months old.
Every summer when things get slow, I send them off to CPS and get the shutters replaced to keep them going.
Can I ask what you shooting that you take so many shots? And how do you review them all?
My Mk 2's shutter broke with 23k on it, they fixed it free of charge as well, plus they replaced a few other parts that I didn't ask about. Thumbs up in my book.
jerrykur wrote:
Can I ask what you shooting that you take so many shots? And how do you review them all?
Jerry,
We cover youth sporting events - mostly cheer, along with the worlds largest gymnastics meet and some world series leagues in baseball. Cheer is my main occupation: up to 10,000+ kids per day. Most shows are 2,000-3,000, but I have 1-3 shows most weekends from October - May all across the nation. We use multiple photographers at each and can take over 250,000 pix in a weekend.
Review them all... My most important philosophy is knowing when NOT to take a picture. In what we cover, there is plenty of opportunity to get lots of shots: easily 80-120 in two minutes of cheer (for each of 3 photographers covering the same squad) The key is making those shots count and knowing the ones that were missed. We have a 1-2 minute break between squads that we review - mostly go back to the ones we know were missed (CF8-2? (I think) shows us image count in the current folder on the fly). Then ALL images from 3-4 cameras are uploaded to our server, processed for web viewing (rotate/shrink) as well as displayed on a slideshow 3 minutes later.
Yes, we'll shoot up to a quarter million pix like that - but I trust my shooters to get mostly great shots. By mostly, I'm talking better than 95%. At one show, it was overheard that we had about 6 bad shots of one team - out of 600. And for the parents (customers), having more to pick from, means more to buy. In some cities, I may take 60,000 pix over the weekend and sell over 30,000 of them.
Mine MKII only went 7800 clicks and the shutter is getting replaced at $192. I guess it could be much worse but I was expecting the camera to just need and occasional cleaning at such low mileage.
My Mark 2 is in NJ with a failed shutter. They just quoted me $471. The body probably has 60K on it. Any ideas on how to nicely ask them to get down into the $225 range that I had thought was the going rate?
I've been where you are ... actually, the first time I had my shutter pre-emptively replaced - the body with 470,000 frames in 9 months, they wanted to hit me up to the tune of $1100!!!
They wanted to replace not only the shutter, but the mirror box, charge assy and something else. All based on their standard count/repair manual - based on film bodies. I finally talked to some higher up Canon execs who let me know those numbers were based on film bodies. Half a million frames in a film body would be about 10 years of service - hence other replacment items. But I assured them that my body was only 9 months old - the whole model line was only 10 months old!! They ended up replacing all those components under warranty.
Since then, I've sent at least a dozen other bodies in - for SHUTTER REPLACEMENT ONLY. I've still had to have discussion with superiors about what needs to be replaced and what not. Their excuse is that they cannot warranty the whole repair if they don't replace the mirror box and charge assembly. To which I was fine - warranty the shutter only - I'll be back in 6 months for another one anyway!!!
So give them a call, let them know that you understand the other components that 'could' be replaced, but would only like the shutter. I have 3 bodies at NJ right now being worked on - two shutters and one CF pin issue. The repairs for blown shutters used to be 407.32 for parts and labor. If they have some real cause for replacing extra components, maybe its worth it to get new parts instead of old ones causing problems, but you should be able to find out what they are doing and request that only what is needed be replaced. Be nice, but firm.
Luke Simpson wrote:
My Mark 2 is in NJ with a failed shutter. They just quoted me $471. The body probably has 60K on it. Any ideas on how to nicely ask them to get down into the $225 range that I had thought was the going rate?
Probably worth a phone call to look into this.
I just had a shutter replaced on a Mk2 one month ago and the cost was $265.40. I'd have to check, but I think the shutter count was around 70k.
