Practical expectations of shutter life

[littlecaesar]

Hi all. I'm very, very new to all of this, and of course the first thing I want to do is experiment and take tons of photos! However, I'm a little hesitant to get *too* crazy with this. For instance, I'm reluctant to take long series of time-lapse photos. The reason? Shutter life.

The shutter in my camera is rated at 100k releases. For standard single-shot photography it would take several years of active use to exhaust that count. Even an action photog taking 3-6 shot bursts frequently would probably find this rating acceptable.

But what if I want to create a montage of time-lapse sunrises and sunsets from my back yard? If I wanted enough stills for a seven minute video at a full 24fps, that's over 10,000 frames! That's 1/10 of the suggested duration of my shutter life (ouch).

Am I missing something totally obvious here regarding time-lapse photography, or is that really how many exposures would be required? If my math isn't too far off, just how conservative is the manufacturer's rating for shutter life? Could I feasibly get 200k+ exposures out of my shutter, or is 100k actually a fairly reasonable average?

Thanks folks for helping a newbie to understand his equipment a bit better. I really want to enjoy this camera as much as I can, but I want to avoid wasteful behavior that might cause it to fail prematurely.

Edit: reading around, I see that 100k actuations is actually a generous number for shutter life in an entry-level DSLR. I also read the article posted here "Actuations & Shutter Count – Someday our Cameras Will Die" by Elizabeth Halford, which I'm grateful to read. But what are your experiences? And how expensive is it to replace the shutter, typically?

[CheaperKings]

If it's time lapse, wouldn't you be taking less shots? Like one every 5 or 10 mins? Or, am I missing something here?

[littlecaesar]

Originally Posted by CheaperKings

If it's time lapse, wouldn't you be taking less shots? Like one every 5 or 10 mins? Or, am I missing something here?

While I'd be taking one exposure every 5-10 minutes with my camera to record the slow changes over time, when I get into producing the video from that time lapse sequence I still need 24 frames for every *second* of video produced. For seven minutes of video that is 24*60*7 = 10,080 frames. Maybe my math (or logic) is wrong here?

[SwissJon]

I've a friend who shoots a lot of time lapse.. He buys cheap cameras and runs them until they die.. Remember, you don't need anything more than 1080p quality.. Any old camera with better than 2MPix will do that. You just need tons of batteries or a mains adapter. Shoot in JPeg so you don't have to convert the photo, and switch off all Auto everything.. Manual exposure, manual focus, manual colour balance, and set the piture size appropriately.

I wouldn't use a modern camera for timelapse.. You don't need to and you will just wear it out.. Yeah.. 24fps equates to 10,000 frames in 7 mins, but my friend does things at about half that I think (I'd have to ask him)

[littlecaesar]

Thank you for that take on things, SwissJon. I suppose you are right; I could probably invest in any old camera that accepted an intervalometer and allowed full manual mode and use it for time-lapse experimentation. It's just rather eye-opening to realize how rapidly I could squander my shutter's life through something so seemingly routine as time-lapse photography.

[sk66]

For time lapse you would take the one picture and drag it across 24 frames for one second display (or whatever). So, no you don't need 10k images.

Lets say you did a 2hr sunset and a 2hr sunrise @ 1pic/5min. That would be 48 pictures. To make that last 7 minutes each image would have to cover 210 video frames or about 9 seconds.

[OsmosisStudios]

Inkista kindly posted a photo of the dSLRs used in the production of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie: Here's all the little cameras, huddled together for warm... on Twitpic

[Jim Bryant]

My EOS MK II's are rated for 150K. Since I'm a sports shooter, I have way over that limit.
The camera manufacture suggest you send the camera in for have new shutter installed. Why...........that's an extra $500 or more to pay for the replacement. Hell, I still have three of my original EOS 1D's purchased in 2002 that I attach as remote cameras at basketball and baseball games and only had to replace two shutters. So far...no replacements for the three MKII's I purchased in 2009.

[BryanC]

Originally Posted by sk66

For time lapse you would take the one picture and drag it across 24 frames for one second display (or whatever). So, no you don't need 10k images.

Lets say you did a 2hr sunset and a 2hr sunrise @ 1pic/5min. That would be 48 pictures. To make that last 7 minutes each image would have to cover 210 video frames or about 9 seconds.

That would make for a very "blocky" time lapse, more of a fast slideshow look to it. To get that smooth, video-like look to a time lapse, it should be about 24 frames (photos) per second. Total number of frames (photos) can add up pretty quick depending on the length of the time lapse video.

Interval time, or the time between individual shots, will depend on the subject matter and the effect you're trying to achieve. A faster changing or a faster moving subject/scene might require a shorter interval between individual shots, whereas slower changing/moving subjects/scenes can have a longer interval time between individual shots.

[SwissJon]

Funny.. I was up early this morning to catch the sunrise at the lake on my way to work.. Met another photographer down there that had been there since 4.30am.. Was staying until about 9.30am.. He was shooting a timelapse at one shot every 15 secs to capture the sunrise.. Good on him, he picked a really stunning spot, and told me that when he started all the stars were out.. Beautiful.. He looked bloody cold though.

That equates to just under 1000 shots over 5 hours.. at 10 frames a second you'd only get a minute and a half.. I think I'd have done one every 5 seconds instead, 15 seconds seems a bit low... He said he'd show me once it was done.. I'm interested to see how it turns out.

I can certainly think of worse places to be sat for five hours