I've got a Digital Rebel XT (great camera)...and a question. Has anyone worn one out yet? I estimate that I've taken 30,000 images with it (not all trains, I'm a sports photographer also), and while it seems to be working ok still, I took a few shots with a friend's and noticed that his (much newer) felt much 'tighter'. How long do they last? What wears out first? I've already got my eye on a 40D...
My wife has had hers for awhile now and traveled around the world with it and nothing, zero, na da, has ever gone wrong with it or any of the lenses. :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up:
I'm not sure about the life of these "prosumer" cameras, be they Nikons or Canons or whatevers. Like you, I shoot stuff that requires lots of images, in my case wildlife, so I've racked up about 17K images on a D70 and 15K on a D100. I've read of others that have racked up 100,000. I take mine in to be cleaned about once a year. They come back like new. It's about $50 a camera. If I haven't shot a lot of images, like last year, I don't bother. If I've been out for days in a downpour (aka Alaska), I'll usually bring them in when I get back. My guess is that 30K might be near the half life of the camera, based on my experience with Nikons. That means it may break at 40K; or it may break at 100K. Or it may never break. It just becomes more likely to break as it ages. My D100 will last longer than the D70, because it's built better. Applying my experience with film Nikons over the years, the mirror mechanism will break first. The shutter mechanism broke first in film cameras, but the digital "shutter" is entirely different and, I think as I haven't really looked at it, not mechanical but electronic. I haven't looked at much, to be frank. I've read claims that a camera is tested to 300K repetitions--or 1000K repetitions--but I haven't paid much attention because I know I'll be replacing them long before then, like I replace my computers. My cameras have paid for themselves many times over. One final note in this ramble. I think how a camera is used or abused has a lot to do with its life cycle. I'm reasonably careful in the field but, if I bump into something or drop a camera--well, that's life when you get semi-serious about photography. Many years ago I was shooting a Nikon F that, through sitting in the sun, was literally too hot to handle. On the first shot, the mirror stuck in the up position. A little investigation showed that the foam that cushioned the mirror's slap upward had turned to a sticky goo that "glued" the mirror up. A little prying with a small screwdriver and it plopped back down. Go to the repair shop? Nah! For the rest of its long life, that mirror had a frame of melted goo on it, and worked just fine. If you haven't done so, I'd bring the camera in and have it serviced. I depend on my cameras working "at work," so I do it without any complaint about the cost.
I'd had stuff go wrong with my Nikons. And it didn't seem to matter how many shots I'd taken. The built-in flash of my Nikon D100 blew out very quickly. I was shooting in a hurry at dusk, and may have had my finger on it as I switched from horizontal to vertical, or it might have been a rain drop. I knew it instantly--it's a very distinctive pop, like the old flash cubes. Six weeks for a warranty repair. The D70 became useless due to condensation (or leaks) during a driving rain in Alaska. The top display fogged up and then malfunctioned; the pentaprism fogged up, and the viewfinder display went screwy. I dried it out in the car, and overnight in the hotel room, and it worked fine for the rest of the trip, although my service guy said I was lucky. 24 hours and $50 for a service. The D70 developed a nasty artifact (a defect, in this case looking like a crow's foot in a small area) after a trip to northern NM where we experienced strong winds and dust. Dust and grit are a real problem for all lenses, but especially kit lenses, and prosumer lenses. Something probably blew in when I was changing lenses. I suspect that whatever blew in sliced off a miniscule bit of the mirror cable, which bit eventually landed on the sensor. Service guy cleaned the sensor, same 24 hours and $50. I'm pointing out that these things happen. Cameras are just tools and, like all tools, they will break for any number of foreseen or unforeseen causes. Our biggest disaster by far was caused by an aged uncle dropping Jeanne's camera and breaking a lens mount.
I can't wait until someone makes a durable camera with quality optics at a reasonable price again like the old film SLR's circa 1960s. My favorite camera is a Pentax Spotmatic from about 1967 (based on the date my dad bought it new at a duty free shop on his way back from Thailand). I don't like the idea that what I buy now will be obsolete in a three or four years. Of course, when there is a pretty healthy market in used digital SLRs I will probably pick one up.
I read somewhere before the design life on the shutter for the Rebels is 50,000 operations, and for their pro line (5D, 1D) is 250,000. Of course, they may operate much longer than that. Most of the other bits are electronic, and should have a very long life. As for the newer ones, with each one the noise has gotten quieter and more reassuring sounding. Take a brand new XT and put it against a brand new XTi and the XTi sounds "better". Just an evolution of technology.
I have been shooting with my Canon XTi for just over a year now - lots of lens changing, and I use it almost everyday. Not a single problem - and I'm especially counting on the self-cleaning sensor...
Hemi's always whining about a new camera. You might want to look at that steve's digapics things. PM him about it.
thanks for the info folks. I do need to get the camera cleaned/serviced - I haven't done that since I bought it 2 years ago... you're right about the new cameras feeling better - when i shot some pics w/ my buddies new xti, it felt alot smoother & 'tighter' than mine. sounds like i've still got some life left in mine, good to hear!
Yes, and once it's cleaned, it might have that smoother and tighter feel again! I'm firmly convinced that, when someone like Canon says 50K cycles, they are talking worst case, without maintenance. For the money and peace of mind, I just do it.
Hi everyone, This is my first post. There's a guy that recently set about answering this very question by having camera owners contribute how many shutter operations their cameras have made. At this point, I wouldn't say the data he's collected will give you an accurate life expectancy. But it does tell you how other owners have fared. From his Camera Shutterlife Database: Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT Average number of actuations after which shutter is still alive: 31,027.6 Average number of actuations after which shutter died: 77,837.6
Welcome to Trainboard! I looked at the site, and the results seem very typical. It seems 60K is about the norm. Some die an early death; others go on forever. My experience with Nikons D100 and D70 is that they'll go on well past the time that I've scrapped them for D200s or D300s. And certainly past any film SLRs that I've owned in the past. I doubt my 1968 Nikon F ever reached 10K cycles.
Very interesting - so it sounds like my camera could still have some life left in it after all! That's a cool website - thanks for sharing. I think after my daughter's season is over I'm going to have it serviced (for the first time since I bought it 2 years ago...) and see what kind of a difference that makes. Welcome aboard Flandry!
Flandry, welcome to Trainboard. After watching this discussion, I'm wondering--I wore out three Pentax 35mm SLR's, and it seems as though the weak point with them was in the mirror retracting and returning hardware. Had them repaired more than once. Never had a shutter problem. Now on our digital Nikons, Canons et al, the mirrors act the same as on a 35mm, right? Anyone had any problems with mirrors? :tb-confused:
I had an XT die well under 10,000 from memory about 6000 shots max. Plus it happened one month after warranty expiry in the middle of Peru.:tb-hissyfit:
Fitz, The mirrors act the same, but I think the mechanisms are much different today. That doesn't mean better but, from a casual inspection, many fewer moving parts. Some of the earlier mechanisms used cables, which would snap. Same for the shutters of film cameras. I suspect the materials today are much lighter with the mirrors, which lessens the forces required to actuate them. I took apart just enough SLRs to learn I really didn't want to do it. I was never much of a Pentax fan, because they did seem to break more often, and didn't like abuse. The lenses were fantastic, as sharp as Leicas, but the bodies had a reputation for being fragile.
Thanks everyone. This is a great forum and I'm glad I can contribute something useful. I'm just getting into model railroading and have lots and lots to learn. So I've been spending a lot of time reading. Dave, what Pete noted is correct in my experience not just with digital cameras, but with consumer electronics in general. Digital cameras are, for the most part, more reliable than their film counterparts and you'll either get a poorly manufactured unit that dies an early death or it'll continue to function long after you've decided you want a replacement. Fitz, Pete nailed it again. The mirrors on conventional dSLRs function the same way they did on 35mm bodies: the mirror reflects incoming light upward to an optical viewfinder. When you press the shutter button the mirror flips up, breaking the stream of light sent to the viewfinder, to expose the sensor. As for your mention of Pentax, their current cameras are generally considered as reliable as those from Canon or Nikon and they make some excellent prime lenses. The most common complaint photographers have with Pentax actually involves their dodgy P-TTL system. However, mirror systems are changing as camera manufacturers are placing increasing emphasis on adding live preview functionality (the ability to see the image on the LCD display) to dSLRs. Olympus, for example, has a method that involves placing an additional sensor into the camera for live preview. A system of mirrors reflects the light away from the still image sensor. This light is then split and 80% of it goes to the optical viewfinder while 20% is diverted to the live preview sensor. We'll have to wait to see how the reliability of these new systems pan out. That said, camera manufacturers are not starting from the ground up. Olympus made their first attempt in 2001 and Fuji and Canon released cameras that sort of did live preview in 2005.
I suspect you'll see stationary mirrors very soon. That is, a piece of glass-like material that goes from 100 percent reflectivity to 100 percent transmission in a few nanoseconds.
That would be pretty neat. Another possibility for the future of dSLRs is sensors that no longer need a shutter to cover them. Sensors used in video recorders don't need shutters. But they haven't been able to offer the resolution of camera sensors. This is changing as more camera manufacturers are developing low noise, high-resolution CMOS systems. Casio's soon to be released Exilim Pro EX-F1 has 6MP of resolution. But more significantly, it can shoot 6MP images at 60 frames per second. It can also record HD video and lower resolution video at 1200 fps. You can see more of this camera here. As this technology improves we're likely to see it start appearing in dSLRs.
