Taking lots of photos

I was reading through this topic and was wondering about lots of photos

Cameras have a shutter life, and I was wondering what it really means? Do the cameras just stop working after so many shots? Or does the number just mean that the shutter may fail after so many shots?

It's not really the number of shots, but it's a combination of the amount and the care you have for your camera. The shutter may slowly get worse and worse untill it simply refuses to work any longer.

Mind you, if you take care with your camera, the shutter will take a VERY long time to wear down.

What breeze said. Camera manufacturers rate their shutters for a # of actuations, but it that number is kind of like how light bulbs are rated. A higher number means you're getting a product that's been tested and the minimum expected time before failure is X. It could fail before X, but most likely it will last a lot longer than X. My friend started his wedding photography business with a Nikon D70, which was rated for somewhere between 50k and 100k actuations. He's put several hundred thousand actuations on it and it still works fine.

That's refreshing to hear

Hopefully you won't be needing your current camera after the 50k picture mark.

I'm pushing 19k with mine! I was amazed to see I had taken so many. I knew I had, but the sheer number makes me giggle.

lol - I'm halfway there and I've only had this camera for a year. I'm hoping to pick up a 40D (well, a 5D/successor would be nice, but I'm so used to this 1.6x crop ).



It's awe-inspiring, isn't it? It's amazing how fast pictures stack up - or rather, actuations stack up. I'm sure you haven't kept all those pictures
Imagine the costs of those in film!

It's definitely amazing to think I snapped my finger off that many times. I did take a year off, so I suppose I can say it's been 2.5 full years with this camera. If I can't swing a new one before July, I'll be doing what I did back in '06, snapping off several thousand in less than a week. And just beyond that, is my cousin's wedding which I have the honor of being the alternate photographer. I'm sure between those 2 events, I'll rack up some nicer numbers.

and no i haven't kept every single photo, but probably 90% of them. I have tons of storage and usually weed out the ones I want to use and put everything else "away." Besides that, I probably have 3 separate copies of all my photos at one time just to be safe. It's too much of a pain to burn them off any more. And with disk space so cheap, why bother?

Considering that vs film, I don't even want to think about it. I can't tell you how many rolls of film I shot and liked 1-2 shots. Sometimes, I wouldn't like any at all and wasted the roll. Oh well, growing pains of a photographer, no?

I agreed to be the main photographer at my fiance's brother's wedding - I've been racking my brain but I'm sure I'll be fine. Preparation, preparation, preparation!