Shutter removal

[MooMoo]

Since buying an older DSLR is a risk due to the limit on shutter actuations, is it easy to remove the shutter completely and use the body as an astro camera?

[jordyvz]

Depends how old and where you bought it from really. I work in a photography shop and we only ever count shutter actuations when a customer requests the count, but none of us who work here are bothered by them. Check the physical condition of the camera and that it actually works fine, that's the most important thing really. 

With the combined years of experience in photography of those who work here with me, we've only collectively seen two shutters fail on cameras, both of which had had over one million shots put through them.

So although that doesn't answer your actual question, don't worry too much about buying used cameras as long as you buy them from a reputable place and give them a general check over

[MooMoo]

Depends how old and where you bought it from really. I work in a photography shop and we only ever count shutter actuations when a customer requests the count, but none of us who work here are bothered by them. Check the physical condition of the camera and that it actually works fine, that's the most important thing really. 

With the combined years of experience in photography of those who work here with me, we've only collectively seen two shutters fail on cameras, both of which had had over one million shots put through them.

So although that doesn't answer your actual question, don't worry too much about buying used cameras as long as you buy them from a reputable place and give them a general check over

over a million activations.. thats VERY VERY impressive lol.

I chew through them stacking with macro and astro

I checked an online site that tracks peoples shutter experiences and for example a 450D dies on average at 42,000 activations.

[MooMoo]

Will a DSLR still function with a shutter removed?  Probably depends on the camera but has anybody tried this?

[Funky_Sam]

Simple answer is No, the problem is there are two sides to the whole shutter thing, mechanical and electrical.

The shutter assembly has sensors which tell the camera where exactly the shutters are, if you remove the shutter assembly its an err99 straight away.

If you remove only the shutter curtains then electronically its fine but exposure is going to all over the place, actually thinking about it that might not be a problem if you are manually exposing or shooting in bulb anyway.

Maybe I'l have a go and leave the shutter curtains out one time and see what that does or if it still gives err99. For the amount of work required to remove only shutter curtains but leave the shutter assembly intact you might as well throw a new shole shutter assembly in there.

[Steve Ward]

I have a 1000D just over 2-1/2 years old going strong with 130,000 actuations under it's belt with no problems , I wouldn't be worrying about shutter failure ... 

[MooMoo]

Simple answer is No, the problem is there are two sides to the whole shutter thing, mechanical and electrical.

The shutter assembly has sensors which tell the camera where exactly the shutters are, if you remove the shutter assembly its an err99 straight away.

If you remove only the shutter curtains then electronically its fine but exposure is going to all over the place, actually thinking about it that might not be a problem if you are manually exposing or shooting in bulb anyway.

Maybe I'l have a go and leave the shutter curtains out one time and see what that does or if it still gives err99. For the amount of work required to remove only shutter curtains but leave the shutter assembly intact you might as well throw a new shole shutter assembly in there.

Considering a 4 digit model number is a single board design that is cheap to make and EXPENSIVE to repair, replacing a shutter assembly this side of a 1 digit model number is a waste of money IMO.

Just wondering because I can source some cheap 4 digit and 3 digit model bodies with questionable usage on the shutter.

[MooMoo]

I have a 1000D just over 2-1/2 years old going strong with 130,000 actuations under it's belt with no problems , I wouldn't be worrying about shutter failure ... 

Nice, however, I have googled many stats on actual usage and the averages are much much lower than that, ofcourse there are exceptions to the rule that end up in the last percentile of the stats.

[MooMoo]

http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/

This is one site I found with shutter death stats.

[Steve Ward]

Not sure I understand their stats ... ?

Stats for 1000D.

Shows average number of shots where shutter survived as 69,860.3 , yet average number where shutter died as 31,069.3 ..... !!!

[MooMoo]

Canon go go great lenghts to obscufate the shutter actuation counter. 

First they removed it from the metadata in the images, then in certain models they hide it completely inaccessible, and tools vary as to the actual value.

An honest manufacturer won't go to great lengths to hide something unless it is very very bad.

[gkec]

You will need some kind of shutter somewhere otherwise there could be some "smearing" caused by the sensor still being exposed during readout of the sensor.

[Steve Ward]

Well my first 1000D has over 130k on the clock and the second one has been clocking 400+ a day since Christmas .

Not sure that you can class Canon as dishonest , sure the data is hard to find but that doesn't make me think of conspiracy.

I was talking to the people at WEX about this a while ago and had to direct them to the site that lets you check the actuation count , they'd never been asked about it before ... !

The data is there somewhere as APT automatically shows the count when the camera is connected , I guess that Canon don't see it as a major issue as reliability doesn't appear to be a major issue .

I would guess that most users don't clock up that many shots , WEX didn't believe my figures to start with , 400-500 a day , thats more than most folk clock in a year ... :-)

[MooMoo]

Well my first 1000D has over 130k on the clock and the second one has been clocking 400+ a day since Christmas .

Not sure that you can class Canon as dishonest , sure the data is hard to find but that doesn't make me think of conspiracy.

I was talking to the people at WEX about this a while ago and had to direct them to the site that lets you check the actuation count , they'd never been asked about it before ... !

The data is there somewhere as APT automatically shows the count when the camera is connected , I guess that Canon don't see it as a major issue as reliability doesn't appear to be a major issue .

I would guess that most users don't clock up that many shots , WEX didn't believe my figures to start with , 400-500 a day , thats more than most folk clock in a year ... :-)

It is not only hard to find and unreliable, they put in EFFORT to remove that information across firmware versions and models. If there is nothing to hide, why go to effort to hide it?

[MooMoo]

Run two shutter count tools, whether it be Magic Langern, some astro imaging software or EOSInfo, you will find that the numbers vary across tools. In fact people have been reporting buying NEW cameras with 15k actuations no the counter with some tools.