Zero cost pictures and shutter life...

I was surprised when I first started reading this forum how often shutter problems were mentioned. With all of my semi-serious photography (hobby, not pro) being with 35mm, it strikes me that this may be due to "shutter abuse" ... What I mean is with 35mm film, there was a definite cost to each push of the shutter button - for film and processing, that with digital, this cost is essentially $0.00 (cost of the flash card spread out over 10s of thousands of shots). This leads to many more pushes of the shutter button for everyone from snapshot takers to serious hobbyists to professionals.

Has the design life (in number of shots) of the SLR shutter increased at the same pace? I doubt it. 100,000 shots seems like a lot for an amateur photographer, but with each shot being "free" - is it, really? Is the shutter a weak link in current DSLR design?

Great question since I'm looking forward to hearing everyones thoughts on this as well. Maybe when i'm more experienced i could limit my shots a little more, but i find myself racking up a high shutter count while experimenting with different settings and trying to get a decent shot out of the bunch.
I occasionally worry that I'll be replacing the body earlier than originally planned...

You probably have a point about the wear. Certainly in digital people take more shots because they are free. I can remember doing weddings in the film days where 10 rolls of 36 exposure film seemed like a lot. Now the digital wedding guys are offering as many as 1500 images from a wedding. If shooting additional frames helps to allow people to find that extra angle that improves their shot considerably then whats the harm? But I'm pretty sure the shutters in the older film cameras were more robust mechanical devices with less electronic controls. No way were they going up to 1/8000 of a second.

You might as well add in wear and tear on batteries, memory cards and camera depreciation. Especially the latter.

A shutter cost less than $300 to replace based on reports.

300/100,000 = .03 cents per shot. Of course the shutter could go at 50k or 150k, but I think you get the point.

Add in depreciation and maybe you are just over a penny a click. I wouldn't worry about it. Film is lucky to come out under a quarter per shot.

RTPVid wrote in post #10913509
What I mean is with 35mm film, there was a definite cost to each push of the shutter button - for film and processing, that with digital, this cost is essentially $0.00 (cost of the flash card spread out over 10s of thousands of shots).

Well, there's also the computer for digital. And software. So it's not free, although it is less expensive in that regard. But then again you can get a great medium format camera with superior optics for a lot less than a consumer crop sensor camera. And then there's the superior dynamic range of film, particularly B&W properly exposed and developed. Is there a price on that, too? Different tools for different problems.

tkbslc wrote in post #10913794
A shutter cost less than $300 to replace based on reports.

300/100,000 = .03 cents per shot. Of course the shutter could go at 50k or 150k, but I think you get the point.

Add in depreciation and maybe you are just over a penny a click. I wouldn't worry about it. Film is lucky to come out under a quarter per shot.

I think you mean 0.3 cents per shot... or for those who don't want to work in fractional cents, 10 shots for 3 cents.

Tony-S wrote in post #10913848
Well, there's also the computer for digital. And software. So it's not free, although it is less expensive in that regard. But then again you can get a great medium format camera with superior optics for a lot less than a consumer crop sensor camera. And then there's the superior dynamic range of film, particularly B&W properly exposed and developed. Is there a price on that, too? Different tools for different problems.

You don't need a computer and software? You get that nifty direct print button, just buy a printer and hook it up! Or just take that memory card to Walgreens and spend about 2 hours manipulating the pictures for printing there. Problem solved!

In all reality, most that are into digital photography already have the computer equipment, and software is basically free. Between the free tools for digital photo manipulation and DPP for raw processing, that really doesn't have to add into the equation. But the serious photographer would indeed have to invest a bit more in this arena.

phigment wrote in post #10914226
I think you mean 0.3 cents per shot... or for those who don't want to work in fractional cents, 10 shots for 3 cents.

Yep, moved the decimal a bit to far, sorry. Either way I think the point still stands.

RTPVid wrote in post #10913509
... it strikes me that this may be due to "shutter abuse" ... ..

I disagree. I believe it has more to do with the fact that along with digital photography forums also flourished and the pool of info has swelled. Back when most pictures were taken on film most photographers shared their info in small groups or clubs. The access to shutter failure data was limited to only a few cameras. Today here at POTN you have access to thousands or more photographers and when a failure happens, they post. Your sample size of camera bodies has increased by many orders of magnitude.

The EOS 1V has a shutter life expectancy of 100000 shots but only a sports pro would shoot that many shots in a year. Now it is easy to shoot that many because it doesn't cost the thousands of dollars that you'd spend on that much film and processing. People think it is expensive to replace a shutter every 100000 shots for $250-500 but in fact it is cheap in comparison, that's just 40-80 rolls of film (processing and film only)! Film cameras had to replace the shutter but you had to pay for film (the sensor) as well. Both film and digital cost if you make prints of course.

Keep in mind that you also have had multi-shot per second slrs for a long time, just that folks didn't want to pay for the development cost of the film, so they didn't shoot off 7 to 10 frames per second even if they could. Sure there were some shooters who would, but nowadays, you have folks shooting 10 FPS just because they can, so folks will be reaching that 100k mark much easier than they used to.

I do not think that it's a weak part of the camera. It's designed to have a high average life, and also designed to be able to be replaced at an affordable cost to the consumer.

Yes, with an EOS-1V you can finish a roll of 36 in 3.6s A friend of mine accidentally took about half a roll of the same elephant at the zoo without meaning to... chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah chickah...

I think the zero cost ISO changes are pretty cool, too.

tkbslc wrote in post #10914490
I think the zero cost ISO changes are pretty cool, too.

Yeah, I used to carry around 2-3 bodies so I could have 50, 200 and 400 on the go...