mas24 Loc: Southern CA

There were reported failures with Sony's a55 wearing out shutters at 50K. However, it is a Translucent Mirror, not a complete mirrorless. But should last much longer than 50K. Sony Repair, was charging $250 after expiration of warranty.

DoyleY Loc: Worland, Wyoming

How did you have time for photography or was that your excuse to get out of the house?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes, I've wondered about that - not only shutter life, but camera life. How long will mirrorless cameras keep working, compared to their very tough DSLR relatives?

EDIT: A negative article.

http://www.diyphotography.net/love-breaks-sold-mirrorless-camera/

Peekayoh Loc: UK

Mirrorless cameras have fewer working parts so they should easily have the capacity to last longer. There again, do you want it to? The more robust a design, the more expensive it tends to be and most people (I did say most) choose to upgrade long before their camera reaches the end of it's life in order to gain more or improved features.

BTW, the shutter life of the better Sony cameras is 500,000 actuations.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Yep, that is what runs the count up. That's why I try to use electronic shutter for that kind of stuff.

Also, if you do HDR, that also can speed up the shutter actuations.

DanCulleton

My 5D Mk II had over 300,000 shutter actuations before I sold it and it worked fine then
That was over two years ago.
The person who has it now tells me it still is trouble free.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Bill, in the late 2000s, I saw our company wear out several shutters in Canon EOS 20D bodies we had purchased in 2005. Unofficially, those bodies had a shutter life estimated at around 50,000 clicks. We got an average of around 65,000 on them before the bodies needed a $240 shutter replacement. But by that time, they were nearly obsolete, about to no longer be supported with replacement parts, and not worth repairing. We repaired a few, but replaced others with EOS 50Ds.

Admittedly, making 350 to 500 exposures per day, four days a week, for 13 weeks every Fall, plus a few hundred a day for six weeks in the Spring, will wear out a shutter much quicker than most people would... Still, our experience told us we shouldn't worry about them, and just replace them as needed.

When we migrated to digital capture from film capture in 2005, we were replacing about 400 Camerz ZII and ZIII long roll (split 70mm) format film cameras with 20Ds. The ZIII cost around $12,000 new! In 2006, we PAID $75.00 apiece to have them dismantled for recycling... The 20D with Tamron 28-75mm zoom cost us about $2000 with a few accessories...

One conclusion we made was that capitalizing $7000 pro bodies was a total waste, since we were making nothing much larger than 10x13 inch prints, and we could buy five APS-C Canons for the price of one full frame EOS 1D Mark whatever. The 1D series might last five times longer, but for school portraits, would you want it to??? No, you'll want another camera in three years, to take advantage of the ever-accelerating rate of improvement!

Ched49 Loc: Pittsburgh, Pa.

A shutter count is a shutter count. 150,000 or 200,000, I don't pay much attention to that...any manufacturer can choose any number they want...who's to know?

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The person who engineered the camera shutter will do mean time before failure testing with several samples to gauge designs. The manufacturer puts a counter in cameras to track usage. Authorized service centers track counts of repaired cameras. So they do use real data to make those claims... for the cameras they want to boast about.

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

Wow !!! imagine being married to wife #80 !!! Holy cow.

James R. Kyle Loc: Saint Louis, Missouri (A Suburb of Ferguson)

Shutter Life Expectancy has never really held my interest. However... This is an interesting point that the O.P. has posted = from a technical standpoint.

Now My curiosity is running overtime about the shutter count on my Ansco 8X10... Well the Lens that is on it, that is. I know from 1971 till now I have used this camera for well over 5,000 images... And before that I am wondering just how many from the former users??? After all The build date of that lens was 1940, two years before the camera was built.

OhD Loc: West Richland, WA

I've come home from 3-week treks with 7000 files, usually both RAW and jpg, so over 1000 shutter actuation per week. With virtually free "film" it's hard to not shoot anything even moderately interesting, in case it is as good as it's going to get (weather can change, one can get sick. ...). Even just walking around home it's easy to run up a few hundred on bugs and flowers in an hour of bracketed or focus stacked shots.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Some mirrorless like the Olympus A-01 don't even have a shutter. Most of the Olympus M series can lock the shutter open for shooting. I'm sure there is a failure rate for all brands, but it has always been extremely low.