20D shutter lifetime

50,000 is typical for consumer grade EOS bodies - and the 20D is a consumer body.

If you want more, the new $8000 1Ds Mark II has a shutter rated for 200,000 cycles.

Shutter replacement runs about $250, assuming parts are available. If your 20D shutter dies in 10 years time, you may not be able to replace it, but that applies to any camera I guess.

50,000 cycles is the same as about 1400 rolls of 36 exp film, which shot at a roll each day, every day, would take you almost 4 years to shoot (and at least $10,000 to purchase and process).

For 95% of users, shutter lifetime will never be a problem. For the other 5%, a $250 replacement cost shouldn't be an issue.

but i don't get it. a nikon D70 has a shutter lifetime of 150.000 as far as i know. you die with the camera on your neck. why 50.000? if i am doing serious work in 6 months my camera will be out. let's say i will be a good sport photographer. let's say i will take aproximately 300 shots per day (one day more, one day less). in 365 days i will take 109500 shots. and i don't think that here in romania i will find a place to replace the shutter and if i will it would probably cost me 500$ not 250$. so why would i buy a 20D to use it a half a year?

If you are a sports photographer that will be shooting at least 300 frames a day you should be buying a pro camera to begin with.

Actually the 50,000 figure is marked with a ? as a guess in the reference you cite. I don't think Canon have formally given a figure, but have suggessted that the life should be double that of a 10D (again no formal figure). I think the guess should probably be at least 100,000 rather than 50,000, based on observed lives of 10D bodies to date.

I recently read somewhere about an old Nikon with over a million shots on the original shutter that was still going strong.

I will stipulate that its unreasonable to expect "consumer" cameras to last that long. But a life expectancy for a shutter mechanism of no more than 50,000 shots is truly pathetic no matter how anyone tries to sugar coat it.

50,000 shots is WAY more than most consumers will ever take with a camera.

I think I read somewhere that the average consumer shoots a couple of rolls each year. Even if you shoot 100 rolls each year a 50,000 cycle shutter will last you 12 years.

All shutter life specs are estimates. I know of a couple of EOS D30 bodies which wore out their shutters in 30,000 cycles and I know of an EOS-3 that went for over 400,000 cycles. The specs are just an estimate. Nobody knows for sure how long any given shutter will last.

I'm sure some shutters may last for a million cycles (just like some Volvos may run for 1 million miles), but they're the exception.

so you suggest that i should expect the shutter life to be at least 100000 shots (at least 150000 i am expecting)

Kodak estimated that the average film camera owner shoots 5 rolls a year. Canon reckons that the average digital owner shoots 5x as much as a film camera owner. 25*36=900.

I've observed friends of mine who own digital cameras but are not really photographers. They'll get groups together and take "say cheese" shots, and do the occasional shot of a landmark or something. In the mean time, with candid people shots, multiple angles, focal lengths, filters on said landmarks, etc, I've probably blasted through 2, 3 or 4 rolls of film in the same time period. Relative to "serious" photographers, people simply don't shoot that much, even when with a digital camera shots are "free".

"so you suggest that .."

We suggest that you use it till it breaks ;-)

I am a keen amateur I guess and try to shoot wildlife in Texas most weekends. I have just sold my D60 after 21 months and had taken about 8000+ shots with this model. At 400 shots per month average (sometimes 400+ per day) this looks like a 10 year life for me or 3 cents a shot for the camera or half a penny for a shutter compared to 25c for a cheap store print. However I don't expect to keep the 20D for 10 years anyway because I think we need 30 megapixels and noise free 800 ASA equivalent to get the quality I like. I have paid $200 for two sets (double photo cyan and photomagenta) of ink in one weekend to print 13" x 19"s on my Canon S9000 printer. Presently I can blow up frame filling shots to poster size ($22 a time) but you haven't got the detail in small objects. If a pro was getting paid for his work the $1500 for a new 20D or even $7-8000 for a new D1s Mark ll is peanuts; never mind the trivial $250 to replace a shutter. I still suspect most pro's don't take that many shots and those in the field are likely to loose or damage the camera before the shutter dies.

In Romania you will find a place to change the shutter - not a problem with htat. I just came back from Danube delta in Romania - this country is not the end of the world. They have far better roads than Hungary, services are on higher level and you can pay with your credit card almost everywhere. Not in small villages, though.

As for a shutter life cycle. My D60 lasted for 121 thousand shots, after changing the shutter I had it for another 20 thousand rounds before I sold it. I put 20D in those five days of shooting through about 2 000 shots. I hope it will last for abouth 100 thousand, but if you are a serious photographer you aoways need to carry some kind of a backup with you. Younever know with digital cameras. Don't think too much about how long the shutter in your camera will last. Or how noisy is the senzor, or how many dots of dirt you find in the picture of the blue sky with F22... All of these things are of interest to people who do not buy cameras for photography, they take them as high tech toys and fiddle with them around for a while and then start to look for a new toy. 20D is a very serious camera and as such deservs to work hard. Good light,

Tony, SLovakia

I know a couple of pro's that work a lot and they only put on 30-35000 actuations a year. The first thing to learn about your digital camera is that it is not a machine gun. You are not going to work every single day of your life or you will die before your shutter does. So lets say you work 250 days a year (5 days x 50 weeks). After you learn to not use it as a machine gun and you learn to take a higher percentage of quality pictures you might only take 100-150 a day. So lets say you worked 250 days and took a 150 images. Thats 37,500. So let's say that you blow out your shutter out in 18 months. and then 18 months later. you just spent 2 grand for 3 years of work and 112500 quality images or less than 2 cents per shot.

Canon only publishes expect shutter durations for the 1 series I believe. If you are really concerned about the shutter duration, go buy a 1D mk2, which is a camera designed for Sports Photographers for $4000 grand or so and spend 4 cents per shot and not miss a few weeks time waiting for your shutter to be replaced.

How can one tell home many cycles a given body has used?

<<I know of a couple of EOS D30 bodies which wore out their shutters in 30,000 cycles and I know of an EOS-3 that went for over 400,000 cycles.>>

how, not home - sorry

i've just called to a canon authorized service and the replacement will cost 120$ but will take two months. i can't believe. i guess the guys are sending the camera to anothere center in europe and wait for it to come back. how long it takes in europe to change a shutter? i assume that you go to a canon service and next day you can pick up you camera.

"How can one tell how many cycles a given body has used?"

If you have a digital SLR and you choose sequential numbering of files and don't do a reset, the camera records that data (up to some limit, typically 100,000).

The 400,000 cycles on an EOS-3 was done in a test where they counted the shutter cycles. The 30,000 cycles on the 30D was done by someone who kept track of their exposures.

If someone just hands you a camera however, you can't tell how many shots its taken since they could have reset the counter, or it could be on its second time around!

I think the EOS-1 series cameras (film/digital) may (I'm not 100% certain) have some sort of internal counter that Canon can access. I've heard this is the case, but not directly from Canon.

Thanks, Bob - good to know.

At least my EOS-3s have an internal counter which Canon is able to read.

Vesa