Just wondering if timelapse photographers have wrecked their shutters with so many exposures. And how many exposures before the shutter dies on various cameras - or are they far more resilient than expected?

Just wondering if timelapse photographers have wrecked their shutters with so many exposures. And how many exposures before the shutter dies on various cameras - or are they far more resilient than expected?

I replaced one of my camera's shutter mechanism. I believe that camera reached about 100k actuations, when it failed.

Quote from: Zero Talent on September 08, 2017, 11:53

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on September 08, 2017, 11:39

Just wondering if timelapse photographers have wrecked their shutters with so many exposures. And how many exposures before the shutter dies on various cameras - or are they far more resilient than expected?

I replaced one of my camera's shutter mechanism. I believe that camera reached about 100k actuations, when it failed.

You could burn through 100,000 shots and not have very many videos to show for it. It could be a significant additional expense, though I don't know what a new shutter costs.

Yes, it can be a significant cost, indeed, especially if you use a high-end DSLR and an authorized dealer to do the work

In my case, I only paid about $120 bucks (if I remember correctly) to a private citizen from California who did a great job (new shutter + professional sensor cleaning included in the price)

There is also an option to use the silent shutter feature available through Magic Lantern, but I only used it for focus stacking, not for timelapses, since it has some limitations for the exposure duration (I believe it can work with ND filters for scenes with little light variation)

1 hour of timelapse footage (@30 fps) means 108000 shots! So it is definitely an issue.

Just wondering if timelapse photographers have wrecked their shutters with so many exposures. And how many exposures before the shutter dies on various cameras - or are they far more resilient than expected?

No one can tell when will the shutter fail, not even factory specified numbers. It's sheer luck. Most modern cameras are rated at 150k, some of them fail in 3 digits, some go one even after one million.
There was a website where users reported shutter fails of different models and there was a graph, but not much conclusion could be pulled out of it, fails where all over the count scale, with only noticable peaks a few thousand clicks before the rated number and some long after the rated number. There was a significant number of fails under 10k or so. As I said, all over the place. I don't think that website is updated anymore.

Timelapse will up your numbers in no time, this doesn't mean the shutter will fail, who could tell if the shutter fails from wear, time it takes materials and grease to harden, bumping the camera around or the combination of all of this.
What it will certainly do is lower your camera's resale value, especially if it's not a pro level camera, where shutter replacement cost is just a fraction of body cost.
 

What is the downside of using electronic shutter?
I mean if you just put it on electronic all the time, what is the downside?

1 hour of timelapse footage (@30 fps) means 108000 shots! So it is definitely an issue.

Although if you're selling stock then each timelapse will be 10 to 30 seconds... so that's 120 to 360 timelapses. Most will probably go closer to 10 seconds than 30... if you can get away with hanging around for one or two hours, why hang around for three or six hours... but you're right. It's still a pretty low limit, especially if you specialise in timelapse.

80,000 shutter actuations for this one (D750):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHrCI9eSJGQ

But a timelapse film like this is worth at least $10,000. Most likely much more if he sells some of the clips as stock.

How would he realise $10,000 (unless it's a contract up front)? Not on microstock, thats for sure.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on September 11, 2017, 08:34

How would he realise $10,000 (unless it's a contract up front)? Not on microstock, thats for sure.

First of all, $200-300 from YouTube in the FIRST TWO DAYS alone. Of course no one knows how many views it will get but $1,000-5,000 is very likely. More is somewhat likely on a video like this.

Why not on microstock? That film can be broken down into about 20-40 timelapses, some of them very unique (where he enters the ports for example). That stuff sells a lot.

A good timelapse can easily make $1,000-2,000 over two years on microstock. Many make much more.

I think $10,000 is conservative.

On top of all that of course custom requests to use the footage as the YouTube video gets more and more views.

This is interesting!
One question: what makes you say it is $100-$150/day?
I'm using an Youtube earnings calculator indicating something as low ~$47/188k views. True, it may be more, based on the quality of the advertisers.

I heard you can make up to $20 per 1000 views but that;s very rare. Top performers, ads at the beginning and people watch them all the way through... but $1 per 1000 should be relatively easy to achieve. So on that video, I'd be very surprised if they didn't make $10K in the next year. Plus stock sales on top.

Just a fun little update a day later, it's now at 487,462 views! This kid is going places. 

Low ad revenue is about $300 per day. It's probably more.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2017/03/27/mechanical-versus-electronic-shutters-pros-and-cons

https://www.slrlounge.com/electronic-shutter-vs-mechanical-shutter-pros-cons/

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/07/todays-photo-lesson-electronic-vs-mechanical-shutters/

Thank you.
Very interesting link!

80,000 shutter actuations for this one (D750):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHrCI9eSJGQ

But a timelapse film like this is worth at least $10,000. Most likely much more if he sells some of the clips as stock.

And it passed 1,000,000! That was faster than I thought.