Mirrorless sensors deteriorate faster than DSLR?

[Guy Parsons]

I will deteriorate far faster than the sensors in my various compacts and mirrorless bodies.

Oldest camera of mine is now 19 years old and when I occasionally use it to see if it still works, everything still looks like it always did. No "sensor dyes fading" effect at all.

Long term the thing to worry about is the availability of specialised batteries still being available.

Naturally in that length of time passed the old camera is not worth bothering with anyway and whatever is current at the time will be so much better than the old camera.

 

[sportyaccordy]

You sound ridiculous. I have a perfectly functional 9 year old MILC in a drawer somewhere. And it's not hard to find perfectly functioning DSLRs AND MILCs older than that for sale.

You leave a mirrorless camera in a drawer for 9 years... and I sound ridiculous?... LMAO! Do you even have 100 shutter clicks on it?

Yes, I have taken thousands of photos with it and have prints from it around my house. It wasn't worth selling when I upgraded, so I kept it. But it still works fine, and it's not hard to find functional used copies:

Pardon Our Interruption...

Similarly it's not hard to find G1s which came out in 2008:

Pardon Our Interruption...

and all the mirrorless point & shoot cameras that came out before that. I just gave my wife's grandmother my Fujifilm s6000fd, which I bought around 2006 and used a lot.... and again still works fine after a repair to the lens.

So yea the notion that MILCs only have a 10 year functional life is just ridiculous.

 

[Bob Janes]

You sound ridiculous. I have a perfectly functional 9 year old MILC in a drawer somewhere. And it's not hard to find perfectly functioning DSLRs AND MILCs older than that for sale.

You leave a mirrorless camera in a drawer for 9 years... and I sound ridiculous?... LMAO! Do you even have 100 shutter clicks on it?

Yes, I have taken thousands of photos with it and have prints from it around my house. It wasn't worth selling when I upgraded, so I kept it. But it still works fine, and it's not hard to find functional used copies:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2322090.m570.l1313&_nkw=sony+nex+c3&_sacat=0

Similarly it's not hard to find G1s which came out in 2008:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fr...=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=sony+nex+c3

and all the mirrorless point & shoot cameras that came out before that. I just gave my wife's grandmother my Fujifilm s6000fd, which I bought around 2006 and used a lot.... and again still works fine after a repair to the lens.

So yea the notion that MILCs only have a 10 year functional life is just ridiculous.

I've got a CoolPix 950 that lost its tiny lens cap years ago. It has been sitting on a shelf in the open with the lens pointing upwards for a good proportion of its life. It does not show signs of losing any sense of colour.

I've also got coloured filters for black and white photography that date from the 50s and early 60s that don't seem to have faded.

 

[Phil A Martin]

You sound ridiculous. I have a perfectly functional 9 year old MILC in a drawer somewhere. And it's not hard to find perfectly functioning DSLRs AND MILCs older than that for sale.

You leave a mirrorless camera in a drawer for 9 years... and I sound ridiculous?... LMAO! Do you even have 100 shutter clicks on it?

Yes, I have taken thousands of photos with it and have prints from it around my house. It wasn't worth selling when I upgraded, so I kept it. But it still works fine, and it's not hard to find functional used copies:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2322090.m570.l1313&_nkw=sony+nex+c3&_sacat=0

Similarly it's not hard to find G1s which came out in 2008:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fr...=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=sony+nex+c3

and all the mirrorless point & shoot cameras that came out before that. I just gave my wife's grandmother my Fujifilm s6000fd, which I bought around 2006 and used a lot.... and again still works fine after a repair to the lens.

So yea the notion that MILCs only have a 10 year functional life is just ridiculous.

I've got a CoolPix 950 that lost its tiny lens cap years ago. It has been sitting on a shelf in the open with the lens pointing upwards for a good proportion of its life. It does not show signs of losing any sense of colour.

I've also got coloured filters for black and white photography that date from the 50s and early 60s that don't seem to have faded.

They won't because their coloured glass. That's why so many historic stain glass windows have survived without fading.

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[Mapril]

In any case I would advise not to point the camera directly at the sun for a long time, especially if the camera is on a tripod - it would most likely make a hole in the sensor ...

 

[Guy Parsons]

In any case I would advise not to point the camera directly at the sun for a long time, especially if the camera is on a tripod - it would most likely make a hole in the sensor ...

Never a tripod and sun combination, that's asking for trouble. I even remember film days forums and people burning holes in focal plane shutters with that.

As for any compact or mirrorless, keep away from badly managed laser light shows, seen forum evidence of burnt pixel patches from that, as well as the usual tripod rising sunburns of course.

Leaving a camera lens cap off and sitting at a table while eating/drinking and that compact or mirrorless lens sitting there is still focusing the world outside onto its sensor. Compacts with collapsing lenses and auto shut lens covers are safe of course.

At least with my usual Olympus M4/3 body plus 12-40/2.8 lens, the lens shuts down to f/16 at power off to help save the sensor.

 

[sirhawkeye64]

I've read a few discussions and articles about camera sensors deteriorating over time, or more specifically the CFA component gradually fades. There is a general consensus that yes, this does occur, but is dependant on a few factors; original durability and materials used, age, and possibly most importantly the collective amount of exposure. Like window tints on a car that slowly fade and you don't notice until you roll down the window and see that little strip at the top that's normally covered by the window seal and hasn't faded like the rest of the window. The big takeaway was that is happens so slowly, that the average life of a camera would likely not net any significant fading, which could meant 20 years before anything noticeable...

But, all of these discussions and articles are older and based on DSLR usage. A DSLR sensor would see the tiniest fraction of a sliver of exposure during general usage compared to a mirrorless. If exposure of the sensor is the main driver of CFA fading, then would that not dramatically expedite the aging of a sensor in a mirrorless vs a DSLR?

There doesn't seem to be much out there specifically updated to consider mirrorless, but I'm wondering if anyone here has any insight?

I doubt that this amounts to anything significant, unless you plan on keeping your ML body for 20+ years. Most people would buy a new body by then, and I'd probably venture to guess the average person upgrades their body (DSLR or ML) about every 3-5 years on average (that's just my guess). More than likely, something else will fail in the camera before the sensor craps out (short of being defective to being with).

In the end, I personally don't think about these things myself. I just use the camera for what I bought it for. If the sensor craps out, then I see how much it is to repair it and I either buy something else or I repair it.

But I would say that for 98% of people, this will never be a problem unless you buy a 20+ year old ML body. I just don't worry about it myself. I go out, shoot, have fun, and deal with the problems as they arise. It's like the people who obsess about shutter life. It could die after 10,000 clicks or go on to do 1 million clicks. There are also a lot of factors involved here too with regards to sensors and shutters (environment, handling, etc).