Discussion
Well that's it, the shutter on my workhorse D200 finally died on Sunday whilst on a job - the shutter just locked up (whilst open) completely. Luckily I had my D300 in my bag so it didn't ruin my day.
To be fair she's been through a hell of a lot of abuse since I picked her up in Feb 2006 from entire weekends spent in torrential rain through to extreme heat and there's only been the odd fault, mostly fixed with firmware. There were a couple of things that I never bothered getting fixed - the rubber grip under the thumb came unstuck and wouldn't go back down, and secondly I snapped off one of the grey plastic clips in the MBD200 grip so one of the batteries had to be held in with the force of the rear cover alone (my fault). Otherwise it performed excellently and didn't let me down and I will be sad to see it go.
Have done the sums and the D200 body paid for itself 7 times over, which is a pretty good return all in all.
For anyone interested the final shutter count was 217700, shot 217701 killed it!
Now off to find a low shutter count D300 to abuse
To be fair she's been through a hell of a lot of abuse since I picked her up in Feb 2006 from entire weekends spent in torrential rain through to extreme heat and there's only been the odd fault, mostly fixed with firmware. There were a couple of things that I never bothered getting fixed - the rubber grip under the thumb came unstuck and wouldn't go back down, and secondly I snapped off one of the grey plastic clips in the MBD200 grip so one of the batteries had to be held in with the force of the rear cover alone (my fault). Otherwise it performed excellently and didn't let me down and I will be sad to see it go.
Have done the sums and the D200 body paid for itself 7 times over, which is a pretty good return all in all.
For anyone interested the final shutter count was 217700, shot 217701 killed it!
Now off to find a low shutter count D300 to abuse
K12beano said:
Aren't they supposed to last to 250k?
Return it to Nikon and see what they say?
I don't think they're guaranteed to 250,000 shutter actuations, just tested to that so in theory are capable of that. I suspect the age of this camera puts it way beyond the 'send it back to nikon' zone. Return it to Nikon and see what they say?
i wasn't being too serious!
You're right, I believe they are only "tested" and that says nothing about how much abuse they get - plus a couple of hundred thousand shots is pretty amazing. for a £1000 camera that equates to ... what? 1,000/200,000 = half a penny for each shot? That is incredibly good value isn't it?
I was away when this got posted originally. How's the replacement search coming along?
7x D300 in stock here: http://www.mpbphotographic.co.uk/used-equipment/us...
7x D300 in stock here: http://www.mpbphotographic.co.uk/used-equipment/us...
IIRC the D200 was tested (but not guaranteed) by Nikon to 100,000.
D300 was tested (again not guaranteed) to 150,000. D3 series to 300,000 - http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/microsite/d-techno...
My D200 is outside warranty and a replacement shutter even from Fixation is just not economical given the value of the camera. I haven't yet replaced the 200, the sports season is pretty much over for this year so the jobs I've done over the last month have been done with my 300. Will get another 300 early next year before the season starts again in late Feb. Thanks for the link, will keep an eye on it
D300 was tested (again not guaranteed) to 150,000. D3 series to 300,000 - http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/microsite/d-techno...
My D200 is outside warranty and a replacement shutter even from Fixation is just not economical given the value of the camera. I haven't yet replaced the 200, the sports season is pretty much over for this year so the jobs I've done over the last month have been done with my 300. Will get another 300 early next year before the season starts again in late Feb. Thanks for the link, will keep an eye on it
Simpo Two said:
Have you tried taking the same shot in RAW with D200 and D300? If so do you notice any differences?
The D200 is better than the D300 in image quality which is why I have five D200s and only one D300.I had a shutter failure at about 100,000 but had Nikon fix it and bought two more used bodies from grays of westminster.
pixelpimp said:
The D200 is better than the D300 in image quality
Interesting - can you define it? I shot my last wedding with a D300 and whilst focusing was notably better, exposures were significantly under (depsite checking the histograms) and skewed left. Needed lots of midrange lightening - at least the noise didn't jump out as it would in the D200 which just needed a dose of curves. I got them back in processing but it took much longer than usual.Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff