Well, I've got three film bodies - 2 8008s and an N90s. All three
are either dead or having trouble. The 8008s are 25 years old and
one of them no longer reads the bar code and crashes in humidity, the
other one won't drag the film past shot 24 or so on a 36 exposure
roll.
The second one I suspect has a tired little motor, or some dried old
film caught in the gears, but I think for a tiny motor like that to
keep on working 150 days a year for 25 years is pretty brave.
The N90s has a motor problem too, but it's nowhere near as old, and
because I've got the 10D I'm not dying of enthusiasm for sending it
out and shelling out a minimum of $200 to get Nikon to fix it, even
not using Nikon. Thsi camera shot weddings before I acquired it, so
you can imagine how much of a workout it got.
On the other side, I'd be amazed if the 10D lasted 25 years, aside
from the point about the technology getting old so fast. I've seen
ratings of 100,000 shots on the lists, but I don't know that tests
have been done to confirm any particular number of shutter releases.
Still it's the shutter that has to keep opening and closing and the
eletronics that have to deal with cold and heat, snow, rain and salt
water. And I'd be willing to take bets that the electronics would
crash first on that camera because it doesn't have the gaskets of the
pro models.
Another couple of years and the pro models will be down to 2K new.
The Mark II is already down around $2500 used on eBay.
--
Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@xxxxxxxx
508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races, press photography
http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf/
