# Shutter Count?



## vimwiz (Jan 17, 2014)

My 1100D was ex-display. The shutter count is ~3500. Is this a lot - What is the lifespan of it approx - I read 50-100 in a lot of places, but nothing official, does anyone have any first-hand experience.?


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## robbins.photo (Jan 17, 2014)

vimwiz said:


> My 1100D was ex-display. The shutter count is ~3500. Is this a lot - What is the lifespan of it approx - I read 50-100 in a lot of places, but nothing official, does anyone have any first-hand experience.?



Well I'd have to look it up for Canon but for most entry level Nikon's the shutters are rated for 150,000 actuations - I would be very surprised if most entry level Canon's weren't rated for at least 100,000 or more as well.  3500 would be a very low shutter count.


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## xj0hnx (Jan 17, 2014)

Depends on the camera, like my D5100 is tested to 100,000 actuations, but it hopefully has many, many, many more than that in it because I am already over 60,000


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## vimwiz (Jan 17, 2014)

Oh good, so years of use, then, if I shoot 100-800 pics a month? Thats fine, was a little worried!.
- I had a 300D way back when and it filed at like 40k or so.


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## Braineack (Jan 17, 2014)

well if you shoot 800 a month, it'll take you 4 years to reach 40K.


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## vimwiz (Jan 17, 2014)

Thanks for the quick replies guys, this place is great!


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## KmH (Jan 17, 2014)

The 1100D (EOS Rebel T3 in the US and Canada) is Canon's most basic entry-level camera and likely has a rated shutter life of 50,000 actuations.

In Canon's current line-up, it looks like Canon only states a shutter life expectancy in each camera's *Features* section for their prosumer and pro grade cameras - starting with the 7D.
Maybe they list it elsewhere for the entry-level cameras.


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## manicmike (Jan 17, 2014)

You have to remember that those numbers are on average. You may end up with 300,000 shutter actuations or 10,000.


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## MGRPhoto (Jan 17, 2014)

manicmike said:


> You have to remember that those numbers are on average. You may end up with 300,000 shutter actuations or 10,000.



Those numbers are far from an average but you're right that each person's mileage may vary. When a camera manufacturer posts shutter count ratings that means that the shutter should last no less than that amount. So it would be more of a minimum than an average. Most cameras are going to last well beyond their rated shutter count.


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## bribrius (Feb 6, 2014)

MGRPhoto said:


> manicmike said:
> 
> 
> > You have to remember that those numbers are on average. You may end up with 300,000 shutter actuations or 10,000.
> ...


I thought that was "lab tested" shutter count. 
which wouldn't mean your camera should last at least that much, but might mean you camera will probably last less than that much because it isn't spending it life in a lab.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 6, 2014)

I really very much doubt that the 100k numbers are an average. It would be pretty dumb to advertise that when a lot of people are clearly going to interpret it as a low end "almost guaranteed" number and then get pissed off at you.
Also an average isn't nearly as informative as a "low end almost guaranteed" number, because average gives no hint of variance, whereas the other does.

I'd guess it's probably more like 75k-200k or something, and they picked a number skewed to the left of the average to go around talking about.




Also, they have to make the vast majority of cameras last past the warranty if they want to keep any of their profits, so you can pretty much rest assured that all of them will last well beyond 10,000 unless something is seriously malfunctional.
If I worked for them, I'd go:
1) We offer X years of warranty, ok so...
2) How many photos do people usually take in X years?
3) Make sure our cameras last for enough photos to make it to X years with a 95+% confidence interval.
4) Round that number up to the nearest satisfying amount and let people know that that's roughly what they can expect their lifetime of the camera to be. So like maybe if 95% of cameras will make it to 83,000 shots, then just say 100,000, and that covers maybe 80% of people. Those who fail sooner wont fail dramatically sooner (and if they do they get their warranty coverage), so nobody will be too mad at us.


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## MGRPhoto (Feb 6, 2014)

bribrius said:


> MGRPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > manicmike said:
> ...




No. When they say it's rated to 100,000 actuations that mean it's rated to last at least 100,000 actuations in the field. Which mean it most likely lasted much more than that in a lab. Which is why most people's shutter rated at 100,000 typically last double or triple that. If their test were just barely making it to 100,000 actuations in the lab then they wouldn't print that number. It would be meaningless and there would be huge backlash.


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## table1349 (Feb 6, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> I really very much doubt that the 100k numbers are an average. It would be pretty dumb to advertise that when a lot of people are clearly going to interpret it as a low end "almost guaranteed" number and then get pissed off at you.
> Also an average isn't nearly as informative as a "low end almost guaranteed" number, because average gives no hint of variance, whereas the other does.
> 
> I'd guess it's probably more like 75k-200k or something, and they picked a number skewed to the left of the average to go around talking about.
> ...




Why not quit guessing an look it up? 
Camera Shutter Life Database

http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/sitemap.php


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## KmH (Feb 6, 2014)

from the user's side, the environmental conditions a camera is used in, and how well a camera is cared for have a lot to do with how long a shutter will last.

From the camera makers side, shutters are somewhat delicate and lightweight mechanical devices. Most of them will last to about the rated life, some will last longer, and some will fail sooner.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 6, 2014)

gryphonslair99 said:


> Why not quit guessing an look it up?
> Camera Shutter Life Database
> Camera Shutter Life | Sitemap


That's a nice collection of hundreds of completely unexplained numbers you have there, good sir.

1) They don't bother to explain the Kaplan Meier statistic or give any justification for whether it is appropriate here. From what I can tell from looking it up myself which I shouldn't have to do, it is used to shield against right-censored data from people dropping out of studies, but the data we have is both left and right censored and probably has multiple other problems. Nobody claims this sort of thing is supposed to be protected against by the metric as far as I can see.
2) Where did they recruit data from? People who wandered by the site, who are probably super biased to look for a site like this if their cameras died versus not??? The statistic is supposed to be for randomly sampled populations, and I have no idea if this is, because they don't list methods.
3) Why the hell are the graphs all logarithmic? I mean I get that you might want that to show the histogram data, but for survival curve, I live in linear time with my camera...


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## table1349 (Feb 6, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > Why not quit guessing an look it up?
> ...


I bet they would be glad to explain their method right after you explain where you get all your data for all the S.W.A.G. &#8203;info you post.


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## table1349 (Feb 6, 2014)

duplicate post


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## Gavjenks (Feb 7, 2014)

I don't disagree that my guesses are frivolous and inane.

However, mine is a post I wrote in like 5 minutes on a forum. Theirs is a years-long (?) project with thousands of contributors, dedicated web hosting, etc. Which is why I find it pretty shocking that they still somehow have LESS discussion than I did.  Their conclusions are* just as frivolous* without that discussion and evidence that they controlled for the dozens of problems there could be with this.

So yeah, I'm not saying either of our guesses is right or wrong. I'm just saying that although it has potential, AS IS, this is not particularly a better source of information than Gavjenk's off-the-cuff ramblings.


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