Shutter life

A site that has some interesting data on shutter counts.

link

Best regards

It is interesting, but as the failure rate is based on only one negative result maybe it needs a larger sample.

reason shutter died, house fire?

Who knows Doug, but it's always best to approach statistics with caution.

To be honest, statistically I don't think that gives any useful information.

Now that was being nice, John.

I would be inclined to call that site a waste of bandwidth:

- The sample size is way too small.
- All the data is user reported.
- No indication of the total production run is given.
- There is no indication of the conditions under which each shutter was used (think single shot compared to all multiple exposures).
- There was no climatic or temperature data.

One could take all the data for each model, and work out the standard deviation as well as the average - and then have some slightly more useful values.

And, if you really want to see the value of that database, look at the figures for the SD9 Sigma - a sample size of 13, of which two appear to be the same camera (and are certainly the same person reporting). I find it hard to believe that two samples should each fail at exactly 65278 actuations in the same pair of hands. Not impossible, just very hard!

Geoff

Results for a more common camera, the D300, are a bit more plausible. People usually upgrade their cameras before shutter problems occur, or something else goes wrong, so it's always going to be hard to get a complete picture.

Are people more likely to seek out and participate in such a site if they do run into shutter problems?

I did hear that over 80% of statistics are made up anyway.

So I guess that you won't be a regular visitor then?

That makes more sense as I had heard it was closer to 104.8%

In a way, statistics are only that and may have no real impact on most people or their activity. Unless your an insurance broker?

Best regards.

Of that, you can be sure!

If I were marking that as an undergraduate project, it would only just have scraped a pass.

But seriously, I can imagine that the site will attract a lot of visitors, once. There is not enough data to make a real difference on a buying decision - but no doubt some people will visit a second time if they are wavering between two models, and want another reference point.

Or, look at it another way:
If the shutter on model X is a shutter that has a few recorded failures at around the 40,000 mark, that would not even be worth considering, for me - since that is about 15 years use, for me. For a pro taking 40-50,000 shots a year, the warranty length could be far more important. For either of us, the reliability of the electronics might well be a much bigger factor. Just think how many people have reported shutter failures here, as opposed to sensor staining.

Geoff

Statitically 6 out of 7 dwarves are not happy.

And 6/7 dwarves aren't grumpy either.

So if they're not happy or grumpy, what then? Mildly peeved? Moderately cheerful?

I reckon they might be sneezy, sleepy, bashful or even dopey.

Regards,
Doc