Shutter life expectancy

Hi everybody,

In the process of looking for a backup body, I've come across a fair-priced (170usd) GX7 with a 32k shutter count. That count is higher than on my EM10, so it got me thinking: what is the life expectancy of the shutter on these cameras? Needless to say, I came back empty handed, any info I found seems to be an educated guess at best.

So then I had the idea of asking this forum: what is the shutter count for your camera(s)? This way we may get a sense of what the upper bound looks like for some popular models. Plus, it's just interesting to know and it would be a change from the FF/MFT agonizing debates

In my case:

EM10, 24k clicks

The mechanical shutter should last 200K easily. The electronic shutter should last forever. Depending on the amount of use, you should be due for a new GX18 by the time the shutter on the GX7 fails.

How many of us have actually used 100K of the mechanical shutter within 10 years? That's about 200 a week. There won't be much point fixing a 10 year old camera.

nic22 wrote:

Hi everybody,

In the process of looking for a backup body, I've come across a fair-priced (170usd) GX7 with a 32k shutter count. ...

In my case:
EM10, 24k clicks

Short answer, 32K isn't that big IMO. I think the life expectancy is in the 100k ballpark (somewhere from 75k to 150k), but that's a guess. So it's about 1/3 it's expected life. Don't worry unless you're going to shoot time lapse with the m-shutter.

(At that time, 100k was an enthusiast's shutter count claim, 75k was more basic or older camera's shutter count, and I think the E-M1 (mark 1) and other pro level cameras were 150k. Nowadays, 200k is more the pro/enthusiastic level.)

Long answer:

Shutter life expectancy is an arbitrary number that manufactures come up with that means X% of the shutters will last that long. The percentage could be 95%, or 99% or 50%. Even if it's 99%, it still means 1% will fail before that point; aka not guaranteed to last that long. But it also doesn't mean that it won't go a lot over that number, either.

A couple points of reference: My GX7 has about 49k shutter count. My D5100 has about 150k shutter count. Both are still going fine. Nikon stated the D5100 has a life expectancy of 100k, so I'm one of the ~95% (or whatever % nikon used) that has already "out lived" its expected life. I shoot time lapses, so that's how I got so high shutter count on these cameras.

OTOH, my G9 lists only 2.3k (mechanical) shutter count, but I use the e-shutter a lot more on the G9 than I did with the GX7, and the D5100 is mechanical only. I took over 2000 images in one day last month, mostly e-shutter, so they aren't showing in the shutter count number.

Skeeterbytes wrote:

Back in the E-series days Oly published a spec for the projected life of the E-3/5 shutter, which was a more robust unit than the 1/4000 shutter in the three-digit cameras. It may have been 100k but don't quote me.

With 5fps top drive speed one had to work hard to achieve 100k images but my OM-Ds have all had 10fps at least, and the E-M1ii is significantly higher than that so hitting 100k is child's play. With no flipping mirror there's a lot less mass in movement so hopefully the mirrorless segment benefits from its simplicity with greater dependability. (Does it matter the shutter parks open?)

Cheers,

Rick

Here is a message I wrote many years ago, discussing how the Mirrorless (G1) focal-plane shutter operates vs. a "conventional" stay-closed FP shutter.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/32497170

and here is another, from a different thread, that descended into more detail about shutter stress issues:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/34668749

Regarding shutter life in general:
From way back, the traditional Canon or Nikon pro-line (mechanical) bodies were expected to last well over 100k shutter actuations. Pretty good, but the Leica M (mechanical) body was expected to last into the million-actuation territory. But even that is not exactly the same thing as "no problems during working life". For those clockwork-regulated shutters, one would expect to have them checked, cleaned/lubed and adjusted every few years to stay in top and well-regulated condition.

FP shutter design moved on to electronic speed regulation and solenoid release and reset mechanisms, curtain design moved from cloth or foil on rollers to overlapping metal leaves, and lately even more electronic control of curtain travel and braking (the latest Panasonic shutters have very low shock/vibration levels, and note that the newest Leica M10P features a new extremely quiet shutter that may use some of that Panasonic engineering (I don't know that but it's reasonable).

We already have all-electronic "shutter" operation offered in most cameras, and soon we may see the beginning of the end of mechanical shutters, as so-called "Global shutter" designs begin to be used.

Sranang Boi wrote:

How many of us have actually used 100K of the mechanical shutter within 10 years? That's about 200 a week. There won't be much point fixing a 10 year old camera.

My E510 probably has around 100,000 shutter activations, my E5 ripped at 72,000 (too long at too low a temperature may have been a factor), my E-M1.1 shutter started sticking at over 175,000 activations. Both the E5 and E-M1.1 were repaired under the extended warranties. All three cameras still work well.

jwilliams wrote:

shutter life expectancy as specified by the manufacturer is how problematic a certain model has been. Some models will have shutter problems more frequently. 2 cameras might be rated for 100,00 clicks, but one may see the repair shop for shutter issues much more frequently.

I have never worn out a shutter, but I don't shoot as much as a pro might. However I have never heard of shutter life really being a problem with most cameras. Generally something else will break first.

FWIW, I recently had to send in my E-m1 mark I because of shutter problems. I bought it in 2016, and it was covered under the extended warranty I bought. I noticed it mostly when shooting telephoto shots, where the camera tried to keep the shutter speed at 1/(2*focal-length) to minimize issues with hand-shake. Most of the pictures came out as over-exposed. Originally I thought it was just metering, and dialed in exposure compensation. I noticed it when I was on vacation in Florida, and shooting birds. Fortunately, I did come on the vacation with multiple cameras, so the G85 became the main camera instead of the E-m1.

In the list of what they did, Olympus stated that they checked the shoulder strap lug rings and the mode dial, both of which are common things people have complained about in the E-m1 mark I. I don't recall if they explicitly mentioned the EVF, but mine didn't have the green blobs from sun burnout if you use high diopter setting on the EVF (which I don't)

This is the only camera I've owned that developed shutter problems. I did have an E-3 that I had to send in for auto-focusing not working. The day the E-3 stopped focusing happened to be the day I pre-paid for the micro 4/3rds Olympus E-P2, so I joked that the E-3 was just pouting. Several of the cameras when I sent them in for the cleaning service that is part of the extended warranty did have to re-glue the leatherette cover on the camera.