Shutter Actuations - A concern?

R

Ruffmeister

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Hey all,

Have found a rather nice M9 which has had a new sensor fitted in December / Jan 16 (which will be the new type)

The camera has 25k actuations. Is this high for an M9? Would you walk away? I've seen many with 5k or less.
It's a reasonable price. I would have said that the shutter would be good for 100K+. I guess they can fail anytime however and I believe that Leica don't give a guide amount.

Have now sold my Fuji X gear and the monies are there for an M9!

Thanks,
Dan
 
Fraser said:
There are lots of M9s out there main thing is to get one with a warranty and then you have no worries!
Click to expand...

It's not boxed but I'm not too fussed about that. To get one boxed, you seem to be paying a good chunk more. As long as its in good nick with a new sensor, then I'd be happy.

I didn't think the actuations were crazy high but I wasn't sure if there has been speights of failures at low actuations. Im sure there is the odd one as with any camera.
 
When I traded my M9 for an M-P, it had 17,000 actuations on it and the sensor had corrosion. Worked perfectly. 25000 is nothing if the camera has not been abused and has a new or good condition sensor.

G
 
Godfrey said:
When I traded my M9 for an M-P, it had 17,000 actuations on it and the sensor had corrosion. Worked perfectly. 25000 is nothing if the camera has not been abused and has a new or good condition sensor.

G
Click to expand...

Thanks G

It didn't look beaten up. A couple of spots of brassing (on/off switch and on the corner near the viewfinder) but I see that as inevitable. It's from an approved dealer too rather than private so that fills me with a bit more confidence.
 
I will speculate the probability for a shutter failure on a camera with 25 K actuations is low.

Here's some data specifically for the M9.

The data is from volunteers who decided to share their shutter status. I have no idea if the sample is large enough to be meaningful. This is how come I used the word "speculate.
 
What is the Leica M9 shutter rated at? Is there any information from Leica about this?
Cheapie Nikon Digi SLRs are rated at 100,000 cycles, prosumers go to 250,000

I am surprised at those numbers Willie found, out of 55 cameras, 7 went dead before they even reached 100,000 cycles. I don't trust internet polls at all.

Kiu
 
NIKON KIU said:
What is the Leica M9 shutter rated at? Is there any information from Leica about this?
Cheapie Nikon Digi SLRs are rated at 100,000 cycles, prosumers go to 250,000

I am surprised at those numbers Willie found, out of 55 cameras, 7 went dead before they even reached 100,000 cycles. I don't trust internet polls at all.

Kiu
Click to expand...

Bottom line: I'd rather buy a used camera with less shutter cycles.

Of course internet polls can be unreliable if people decides to lie.

Another concern is the sample size is small and the participants are skewed. If you had a shutter problem you are more likely to report in the survey.

Unlike Nikon, Leica, Fujifilm and other brands do not publish shutter mean-time-between-failure specifications. So all we can do is assume MTBF specs are similar for still camera shutters. Anecdotally, this seems to work. Compared to other issues people have with digital cameras, I have not read many accounts of shutter failure.

My guess is 50 - 100K cycles is not that risky.

Years ago I was on a team that shot a weekend long, indoor-sports gig. There was a pro sports photographer on our team who brought a rolling suitcase packed full of Nikon D2X bodies wrapped in motel towels. The D2X bodies worked perfectly but had all exceeded their MTBF shutter cycle spec. He was selling them for a fraction of the KEH average price. This guy shot mostly amateur sports full time all over the southern mid-west region.
 
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