1D mark II shutter problem?

Hi everyone,
I have just bought a 1D mark II which I am very much looking forward to receiving

But I thought I would ask a question about the shutter. On all the photography forums I have only ever seen posts of 1D mk II shutters dying. Do you think Canon made a design mistake with the shutter. There are so many posts about them dying. I am sure I will be happy with mine, but it does seem a little strange, it is rated for 150,000 but most of the ones that die are no where near that.

Any thoughts, or experiences?

Typically, what do you hear more often: people complaining about something that broke or about something that's working as expected? I think that's all there is: for every shutter that died at 20k actuations there's a shutter that went 300k+. You just don't hear about it.

Do a search here, Daniel. There's another post on replacing shutters. Can be expensive.

Will you have a warranty? If you can get one, great! Make sure that this 1DII has not been used in a sports event business where they do 10,000 shots a week! Get a shutter count.

In most cases, the shutter life is not something I'd worry about. But assuming you are buying a used 1DII for $2200-2500, spending $500 on a new shutter (they replace a whole bunch of stuff, check the other thread), will at the worst bring you at $3,000.

This is still v. good for the machine it is.

I hope you are getting a great deal. All I can say is that it is the best camera I've ever used.

Asher

Thanks,
I am not personally worried too much about my shutter, and mine may well go to 200,000+. It is just that I keep seeing posts like this

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=19941353

And it is always a 1d mk II never a 1D, or a 1ds, or a 20D. I just thought maybe canon made a bit of a mistake with the 1d2 shutter. Anyway just a thought. I am sure I will love the camera when I get it, I just have to hold on one more week.......

I think I can do it

Not a happy camera that one

What is the story behind the camera?

I'm sure that a lot of 1DII's were under-used.

Asher

I know a number of people who have had shutter failures on the 1DMkII. In fact I was speaking to a guy last week who's one year old 1DMkII is currently with Canon after doing only ~40,000 shutter actuations. Ironically my 20D has almost done that!

I wouldn't suggest that this guy was a machine gun photographer far from it in fact!. I do wonder if there may have a been a problem with certain prodution runs. It would be great to correlate the serial numbers.

On a side issue, does anyone know what constitutes the quoted 200,000 shutter lifecycle? Is it a MTBF figure? if so what's the duty criteria.

Hi John ,
I'll add that story to my long list I did read about one 1D2 shutter the other day that did over 500,000 so they are capable of long life!

Daniel,

The 1D (Mark 1) shutters are rated at 150K and the Mark II shutters are at 200,000.

In my line of work, I go through alot of shutter counts - over 10,000 per day sometimes. All of my shooters use 1D or MarkII bodies and out of over two dozen cameras that get that kind of use, I know of only one of them that had a shutter go prematurely. The rest of them work as intended, even though we go beyond spec in alot of cases.

My original 1D bodies have well over 500,000 on them - although I did premptively replace the shutters (twice on each) at around 200K-300K actuations. On my 1D MarkII-N body, I put 400,000 frames through it in the first 6 months and just sent it in last month with 470K for pre-emptive shutter replacement.

Like Stan said - it's easy to see complaints; and Asher is right that alot of bodies are really under used (IMHO). Just like any mass produced item, there will be some with issues - but I think the number of issues overall, are still only a very small percentage in the whole scheme. I happen to be on the other extreme, of over use - yet don't have any complaints to the durability or capability of the Canon pro build.

Brian.

Brian, your comments are re-assuring.

How often do you clean mirror box and sensors?

John,

Sorry to get back to this so late...

>> How often do I clean my mirror box and sensors?

Quite rarely actually. The first time I even bothered with my sensor was when I went on vacation (after 425,000 actuations in 7 months). The only reason I noticed that I needed it was that I was shooting at a different aperature than wide open.

I normally shoot at f/1.8-f/2 and dust on the sensor is very hard to notice at those apertures because there is so much light being bent on to the sensor that dust doesn't show up.
But when on vacation in Montana and shooting max DOF, I noticed a flurry of dust build up!

So, other than a simple blowing out of the inside of my camera when I see debris through the viewfinder, I honestly don't think about cleaning it out.


Brian.

Thanks Brian, food for thought there.

I probably change lenses too much in the field which adds to the problem. I should get out of this habit, after all I always carry two bodies.

BTW, my colleague had his 40K shutter replaced by Canon UK. The cost was £180 (~$360)

CPS Paris just replaced my 1Ds shutter - Im now on number 3 - and the camera itself is going strong producing beautiful imagery.

Edmund