M9 Shutter Life expectancy

[glacierparkmagazine]

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I put more than 100,000 on my M9 over nine years...

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[FredGP]

Just in case someone (like me) should land here and wonder: https://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/leica_m9.htm

[jaapv]

After four years ... 🙄 Unfortunately a biased survey. More owners with a failed shutter will respond than those with non-problematic shutters.

[wattsy]

16 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Unfortunately a biased survey. More owners with a failed shutter will respond than those with non-problematic shutters.

You might like to think that but that's not what the graph shows. The vast majority of the results report the shutter still working. In any case, even if the survey was limited to only those who experienced a failed shutter, the survey would still tell you something about the number of clicks at which failed shutters might likely suffer a failure.

 

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Edited October 17, 2023 by wattsy

[jaapv]

14 minutes ago, wattsy said:

You might like to think that but that's not what the graph shows. The vast majority of the results report the shutter still working. In any case, even if the survey was limited to only those who experienced a failed shutter, the survey would still tell you something about the number of clicks at which failed shutters might likely suffer a failure.

 

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Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

That only suggests that the number of working shutters is far higher. But an uncontrolled poll based on user reports instead of a survey of a representative owner group is sure to have a bias towards the failed shutters.

[wattsy]

9 minutes ago, jaapv said:

That only suggests that the number of working shutters is far higher. But an uncontrolled poll based on user reports instead of a survey of a representative owner group is sure to have a bias towards the failed shutters.

Whatever.

[jaapv]

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The other problem is that the failure cause is not reported. How many shutters failed through outside mechanical failure, like a grain of sand or touching it during cleaning, etc., for instance?  I am not aware of any report of a shutter failing through wear.  At any rate the shutters are made by either Copal or Seiko, like most if not all other camera brands. I think Leica uses Copal but am not sure. So there will be little variation in shutter reliability between cameras. If any should emerge it will only show that the shutter makers apply different levels of tolerance in their production process.

[ianman]

How did they arrive at a .4? 🤔

... in any case that survey is hardly representative one way or another as only about 100 people responded and probably many years ago.

[SuperPuppet]

so what if a shutter needs replacing. It's no big deal.I worked in a Canon photo service centre in Melbourne for several years up until 2000, and in a camera shop prior.

In that time I saw some shutters replaced. But not that many.  And mind you, we serviced all of southern Australia at the Canon facility, meaning apart from Joe public, we handled all the pro gear through the CPS system. And like I say... shutter replacements were not common at all. And many of those cameras would have seen a huge amount of work.

I can't imagine Leica being that much different. And even if a shutter died? Send the camera in.. new shutter. Done.

[jaapv]

The problem being that for a Leica M the whole camera needs to be taken apart and rebuilt. So even if the shutter assembly costs in the order of. 175 Euro the whole repair will come to a hefty bill. 

[tappan]

Mine has 42,912 shutter actuations.
It is going strong. Just had a CLA. Only a few very small nicks on the top plate.
It is an M9-P, but only because I converted it on the a la carte program (so is it still an M9-P? 🙂
It has the best newest replacement sensor, having been replaced in 2017-ish.
I love it but am being honest when I write that I am starting to feel around to see how much money I could sell it for.
It is one tough camera, though! Built like a brick.
 

[3D-Kraft.com]

Does anyone know, what happens with the counter in the camera (visible in the debug service menu) after a shutter replacement? Will it be reset to 0 ?

Edited June 4, 2024 by 3D-Kraft.com

[jdlaing]

12 hours ago, 3D-Kraft.com said:

Does anyone know, what happens with the counter in the camera (visible in the debug service menu) after a shutter replacement? Will it be reset to 0 ?

No.

[3D-Kraft.com]

vor 57 Minuten schrieb jdlaing:

No.

Sorry, my question may have been not precisely enough. Does "No" mean, you do not know, or that the counter will not be reset?

[Casey Jefferson]

13 hours ago, 3D-Kraft.com said:

Does anyone know, what happens with the counter in the camera (visible in the debug service menu) after a shutter replacement? Will it be reset to 0 ?

I asked the people at Leica service center the same question and there's no known way to reset it as far as they know...

[Anbaric]

On 10/17/2023 at 10:05 AM, jaapv said:

That only suggests that the number of working shutters is far higher. But an uncontrolled poll based on user reports instead of a survey of a representative owner group is sure to have a bias towards the failed shutters.

Yes, it seems pretty pointless to gather data in this way, and silly to do survival analysis on a data set with such an obvious potential source of bias. I mean, we just have to think about how the users found out about the shutterlife site in the first place. It's not hard to imagine that people with shutter problems are much more likely to do a search that will lead them there, so faulty cameras will tend to be overrepresented in the data (we have no idea by how much).

[3D-Kraft.com]

To promote confusion:

On page 19 of Torsten Overgaards M9 review, he mentioned:
 

Zitat

I think Leica Camera AG initially said in their specifications for the Leica M9 that the shutter was guaranteed 100,000 actuations

@Rus told us in post #38:

Zitat

...it went on to around 130K, at which time the camera had the sensor replaced with the 2nd gen type and the shutter count was zeroed. Now it is over 60K again...

Which would mean, there is an option to reset the count - but we still have two type of counts: the one in the debug menu and the one for the image-naming...
Perhaps @Rus can clarify, which one was resetted?

[jdlaing]

2 hours ago, 3D-Kraft.com said:

Sorry, my question may have been not precisely enough. Does "No" mean, you do not know, or that the counter will not be reset?

It will not be reset.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[3D-Kraft.com]

My assumption regarding the counter so far is:

• The counter, that you can see in the debug info screen will not be reset after shutter replacement
• The counter used for naming the files may be reset, but there seem to be also other actions, which can reset this

 

[69xchange]

My M8.2 has a new shutter from Leica back in 2023 and the shutter count was not reset in the debug menu.