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High Mileage cameras

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My Nikon D90 has just rolled over 10000 shots and reset to 0. How long does a digital camera last - I mean physically, not just superseded by new models?
 FactorXXX 23 Aug 2014
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Have a look at this: -

http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/nikon_d90.htm
In reply to FactorXXX:

Thanks for this link. As expected it seems the mechanical aspects are the limitation of camera life - ie Shutter or Mirror lift. I look forward to the next ~ 40,000 shots.
 Blue Straggler 23 Aug 2014
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

> My Nikon D90 has just rolled over 10000 shots

How many good ones, Keith?
In reply to Blue Straggler:
I have had the camera for about 2.5 years and there are about 200 worth saving in the 'Best of' category. Having being trained on film I try and get things right at the point of taking rather than depend on Photoshop for recovery - is 2% a reasonable hit rate?
 Blue Straggler 23 Aug 2014
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

It's an interesting question. I was just being playful really, but it is a good question. NOt directed at you, but I think a lot of previous film shooters (myself included) look back through rose tinted spectacles. I used to pride myself on a 50% hit rate when shooting concerts but I was surely being generous with myself in order to assuage the feeling of the cost per shot. I've been scanning in old negs this year with a critical eye and many of my old favourites turn out to be "not that good" with the objectivity brought by distance.

They used to say 1 great shot from a roll of 36 exposures of 35mm was good.
2.8%

Probably doing ok then
 Tom Last 23 Aug 2014
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

I've done nearly half a million on my EOS 1D mkii. I shoot football on it most weekends though, (not to mention everything else during the week) and was used to shoot sport daily before I had it, so not surprising.

It's lasted well, but is pretty f*cked!
 gerryneely 23 Aug 2014
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

When I was a student, I read a quote by Henri Cartier-Bresson where he stated that he considered himself fortunate if he got 6 good photographs in a year!
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

I used my Hasselblad 500CM for 15 years - did the pictures for four big coffee-table books with it, plus lots of portraiture etc. I think I shot well over 6000 frames (that's quite a lot for medium format, with 12 frames per roll). It's been in a cupboard for 15 years now, but I'm sure it's still 100 per cent operational. I think my success rate averaged out at about one publishable frame every 1 1/2 rolls, and one published frame every 3 rolls - so that seems tally with what others have said, though of course with medium format you were much less trigger happy, and took more care, than with 35mm, because the film and labs costs were just so much higher.
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Has anyone ever heard of a worn out shutter?
 Hannes 23 Aug 2014
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

pfft, I've shot more than that in a month
In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Didn't Adams consider twelve in a year to be a 'good crop'?
In reply to Dispater:

Probably. There's a hell of a lot of luck in it. But hard work (getting into clichéd right place at right time) pays dividends. Still a very low art form. More a chasing after moments of reality that somehow transcend reality. It's all in the moment, and very little in the medium or the 'art'.
 Blue Straggler 24 Aug 2014
In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

> Probably. There's a hell of a lot of luck in it. But hard work (getting into clichéd right place at right time) pays dividends. Still a very low art form. More a chasing after moments of reality that somehow transcend reality. It's all in the moment, and very little in the medium or the 'art'.

No offence Gordon, but that post seems self-obfuscating. What's the "low art form"? Working hard? Photography itself? "Chasing" and being "in the moment".

This post is an earnest request for clarification, please.
In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Hi Gordon - I have your books and they are much treasured. I used to reckon 1 good image per roll of 36 and probably 10 a year that were outstanding(ish) when I used film. I once did a workshop with Joe Cornish and his attention to detail with his big field camera was remarkable. He took 2 identically exposed images and developed the first one and only developed the second if he needed a correction before printing. I never asked him his success rate but I have some of his books and they also are magnificent.
 eduardo 25 Aug 2014
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:
Doing event photos I can shoot 1000 photos a day and with a decent, semi-pro model like the D90 I'd expect vastly more than 10,000 shots out of it, as suggested by the link posted by FactorXXX. I have done over 100,000 shots with 2 of my nikon bodies and a 3rd is rapidly approaching this.
Post edited at 11:47
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

> Hi Gordon - I have your books and they are much treasured. I used to reckon 1 good image per roll of 36 and probably 10 a year that were outstanding(ish) when I used film. I once did a workshop with Joe Cornish and his attention to detail with his big field camera was remarkable. He took 2 identically exposed images and developed the first one and only developed the second if he needed a correction before printing. I never asked him his success rate but I have some of his books and they also are magnificent.

The procedure of taking two images (i.e both sides of the the 'double dark slide') with identical exposures, and then only processing one was fairly standard on view cameras. Certainly what I always did (I had first an MPP, and then a Wista 5 x 4). The technique with transparency film (the norm for book/magazine work) was to err on the side of underexposure by 1/4 to a 1/3 of a stop where there was a huge dynamic range in the picture. And then to get the other sheet push processed as necessary if there was problem. The second sheet always acted as a safety backup too.

Agree about excellence of Joe Cornish's work.
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> No offence Gordon, but that post seems self-obfuscating. What's the "low art form"? Working hard? Photography itself? "Chasing" and being "in the moment".

> This post is an earnest request for clarification, please.

I put that out as a bit of a tease with some thought-provoking enigmatic comments. Can't possibly discuss it now, I'm afraid, as I'm writing today (yup, on a BH!). For 'in the moment' see Roland Barthes' excellent Camera Lucida.
 Cobbler 25 Aug 2014
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Nikon D5100 currently at 55947 and going strong!
 Mark Savage 25 Aug 2014
In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

> Has anyone ever heard of a worn out shutter?

My 5D mkI shutter died at 800,000. I sent it to Canon to be replaced and the paperwork came back with the shutter count on it and someone had put a few exclamation marks in biro. I think they're supposed to have a lifetime of about 100,000.
It would probably have lasted longer, but I'd been in the desert for a couple of weeks and the camera was full of sand.
 PontiusPirate 25 Aug 2014
In reply to Mark Savage:

Against those figures I have a rather disappointingly 'film' attitude which means I'm only managing ~1000 shoes per year with my main body, but then it's a hobby, not a profession, and I'm having to 'train' myself to take multiple shots at any given setup to insure against AF variability, plants blowing around, water on the lens and/or filters, the tripod and camera being bodily moved around by the wind, etc, etc - all things I've had to contend with over the past few weeks!

I imagine that actuation count is going to increase somewhat now I've committed myself to a stupidly ambitious book project...

PP.
 Sean Kelly 25 Aug 2014
In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
Did you have the shutter serviced Gordon? It's the one fault with the 500CM. Really old technology! I ditched mine in the end as I couldn't rely on a correct exposure every time.
Post edited at 20:00
In reply to Sean Kelly:

> Did you have the shutter serviced Gordon? It's the one fault with the 500CM. Really old technology! I ditched mine in the end as I couldn't rely on a correct exposure every time.

Yes, exactly that. Something in the shutter trigger mechanism jammed after about 8 years. It was the only thing I ever had to have serviced on it.
 Blue Straggler 25 Aug 2014
In reply to PontiusPirate:

> I'm only managing ~1000 shoes per year with my main body

You are a clone of Imelda Marcos and I claim my five pounds
 PontiusPirate 25 Aug 2014
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Doh! Proof-read fail - in context, of course, it should reads 'shots'.

Interestingly, I do go through a lot of shoes, but I walk & run a lot and the number is somewhat less than 1000...



PP.

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