What Happens When Camera Shutter Dies

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Hi
I am wondering why exactly is shutter life? I accept few questions around this. If some of you lot knowledgeable audience tin can answer, it would really assistance me understanding basics.
1) What is shutter life?
2) What happens once camera shutter dies?
iii) Is that repairable?
Cheers
1) Shutter life is the expected number of shutter actuations you tin make with a particular photographic camera before the shutter dies.
two) When the shutter dies or starts to malfunction you lot will get black or strange colored banding on photos or you just won't be able to take photos whatever longer
three) It is repairable, although information technology can exist a costly repair. Unless you are taking tens or hundreds of thousands of photos per year, the likelihood of your shutter declining before a newer, meliorate camera is out is slim.
RS
Thanks RS.
I am non a pro. So I have photographs only during vacations, travel and occasionally family functions. I gauge my average would exist not more than 15000 photos every 3 years.
Any idea approximately how much it costs to repair?
If yous take five,000 photographs a twelvemonth, you should not be worried about shutter life.
The repair cost depends on the manufacturer. You tin can contact them and see if they would quote you a cost. For Canon consumer DSLR cameras I believe the costs are effectually $200-250 US, simply I reserve the right to exist wrong well-nigh that.
The shutter would commonly just be replaced by a new module. The cost of replacement will be fairly abiding over time, but the value of the photographic camera will be going down, so there comes a point when repair is not practicable.
The 'expected life' is an average -- some will go out sooner, only the other half of the lot will get out afterwards. At your level of shooting, I wouldn't worry about information technology. I recollect Rob is in the ball park on the price, simply like him, I don't know that.
By the way, although the mechanisms are much cruder, almost all of my 40+ twelvemonth-quondam East German focal plane shutters are withal working but fine, and then long equally they're given a little practice from fourth dimension to tim.
Some Nikon cameras were tested for 50,000, 100,000, 150,000, or more than shutter actuations.
And then this shutter life expectancy has some merit and is not just a guess, since is based on real tests, at to the lowest degree for Nikon cameras. Not sure about other brands.
This does not guarantee that shutter would not fail earlier, or the shutter would terminal longer. A lot depends on condition and surround where/how the camera is used.
Thanks JDM and Rob.
This ways that shutter actuations and cost of replacement over a flow of time is not of a major or big business concern. Lets say I buy a used (like new!) 5D MarkII with 25k shutter actuations, I am still good to use for at to the lowest degree 10 more years before I may think of replacement of shutter.
In 10 years time, given how quickly DSLR manufacturers release new models, you may not have an option of replacing the shutter, considering a company may no longer stock the parts.
I'g not saying this will happen to the 5D Mark II. I have no advanced cognition of any of Canon's long-term support plans. I'm just offering information technology upward every bit a possibility.
What happens after the shutter dies? It depends - was information technology a proficient shutter, or did information technology lead a bad life? I've never earlier considered the after-life of a shutter, or for that matter any role of a camera. Is in that location indeed a camera heaven?
Just some idle thoughts while I look for the electricity to go off here in northern Virginia as Irene approaches, clearly mad well-nigh something.
The technical term being known by the acronym MTBF..mean time before failure. I 1000**gled this and found a site with comprehensive listings for many cameras every bit reported by users. So Lamentable,not bookmarked.
I can give no good news : across the major brands,shutters failed at an arbitrary rate. Simply, overall, shutters proved to exist remarkably durable.
I accept used a camera with over 150k actuations (and not a nicely treated 1 at that!) and it worked fine. It was already fashion above the maximum actuations quoted by the manufacturer, but no problem. Far as I know, the camera is all the same in operation and still keeps working...
And I've used a camera whose shutter died within half the fourth dimension quoted. It is, as has been said, capricious, but normally I would expect it to be biased towards the tiptop finish rather than the center or low. The more "professional grade" the photographic camera is, the more sturdy I would expect the shutter mechanism to be - unfortunately, that also means the more expensive the repair would be in instance of failure...