[Tony3d]

I was just thinking about the ton's of electronics built into a modern day DSLR, and was wondering what the life expectancy of a camera such as the K3-ll would really be? Electronics is one of my hobbies, and one of the most common failures in electronic circuits has to be electrolytic capacitors! Over time they basically dry out and short! I'm sure almost all caps are monolithic surface mount caps in camera's, but I'm pretty sure an electrolytic must be used somewhere in cameras most likely for flash. Maybe I'm wrong.

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Last edited by Tony3d; 03-19-2016 at 11:02 AM.

[jddwoods]

I bought K-10D in 2007, K-5 in 2010 and K-3 in 2014. Still have K-5 and K-3 and gave K-10D to my son. All of them work perfectly and none needed any repairs. My only Pentax product that needed any repair was DA 70 Limited I bought used. It had sticky aperture blades and I had it repaired by Eric Hendrickson. Bottom line is that if you take reasonable care of it, Ricoh/Pentax cameras and lenses are very reliable and the odds are good that you will not encounter a repair need

[MJSfoto1956]

worse, there is little in the way of diagnostics and nothing that is user-replaceable. At least with a computer you could always "upgrade" things.

M

[BenCPentax]

Only issue I had was using my K10d on the sea where I think salt water got into it when I changed lenses
and so the shutter wouldn't fire. I didn't get it fixed and have just upgraded to the K3ii.
Built in obsolescence is ok by me since the K3ii is reported to be good for 200,000 shots.
Were I after longevity I'd have stuck with a Linhof or similar.

[jimr-pdx]

At least six months, but then I seem to swap them.

[pathdoc]

My *istDL died after eight years and I think I turned the shutter count over once (10,000 clicks). I think I waited too long to send it in for repairs; I was told by Ricoh Canada's authorised service people that the required parts were N/A and would remain so, so I told them to scrap it.

My K-5 is somewhere in the 14000s after four years and still going strong.

So are both my Spotmatics, bought at least at second hand. I think they will still both be going long after the K5 has gone to the grave.

[johnmflores]

Life expectancy of modern DSLRs > Recurring flareups of chronic Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS)

There is no cure for GAS, just disease management.

[grhazelton]

One wonders.... If a circuit board fails when the latest digital whatever is 10 years old, can you get a replacement? How long will Pentax/Ricoh support their digital gear?

An analogous situation: some years ago in perhaps 1984 I decided to get a good record deck. Denon built one with a fine platter, direct drive, IIRC, and a tone arm which controlled for record warp, etc, via a servo mechanism. Elegant! and according to reviews worked very well. Little worry about pickup compliance/arm mass compatibility; tracking force and anti-skating controlled "automatically." But I wondered about repairs down the road.

So I looked for a deck of proven design, and simple. I chose an AR ES-1. Belt drive, spring suspended arm/platter, isolated motor. Dead simple arm which could be replaced for upgrade or whatever. The reviewers liked it, and so do I. A few drops of oil in the bearing well, and a new belt and good to go again. It has achieved something of a cult status, with a variety of "upgrades" available. I could sell it now for much more than I paid originally. Fortunately I can still get styli for the Shure V-15 microridge, although they're from Japan and aren't cheap.

In similar fashion to my K-5 my lovely LXs have circuit boards, which given the age of the camera can only be replaced by cannibalizing another example. Same situation with my ME Super, the 645n and even the meter on the MX. But all-mechanical cameras, like the Bronica S2a; Retina IIIc, Konica IIIa, Nikon rangefinders, can last .... who knows, given reasonable care and periodic CLAs. Assuming that in 20 years or so anyone can still work on them!

[FantasticMrFox]

It depends on use, and to some extent on luck. If you are an avid photographer who uses the same camera weekly, maybe even daily, for years, it won't last as long as a camera that is only used occasionally.

I'd expect a semi-pro DSLR (e.g. K3) to go through at least a good 5 years of heavy use, and maybe 10 of less frequent use.

[Adam]

I think that in this day and age, in most cases a digital camera will become obsolete well before it breaks down. The exception would be power users who shoot tens if not hundreds of thousands of photos with each body, and isolated hardware failures.

[pathdoc]

I'm pretty sure that's what mine was, and at the end of the day I must admit I probably waited too long to get it fixed. But that is the fact of it. All in all, though, it served me well and I had absolutely no complaints about it while it was working.

[opel3nix]

It depends on use, and to some extent on luck. If you are an avid photographer who uses the same camera weekly, maybe even daily, for years, it won't last as long as a camera that is only used occasionally.

I'd expect a semi-pro DSLR (e.g. K3) to go through at least a good 5 years of heavy use, and maybe 10 of less frequent use.

Sorry, but I think you are wrong! Most of modern technical gear is going dead by not using it. Your car, staying in the garage most of its life is not getting better. Motors have to run and wheels have to turn. Remember sudden SDM death: arn't we told this problem is caused by disscharged capacitors? And to use the lens every two ore three weeks? Your computer is running whith a little battery for the bios. This battery will die obout six or seven years, no matter if you use the computer or not. Try to awake deep discharged electronic gear fro death, you are lucky, when it comes to life again. In Germany we say: wer rastet, der rostet! Keep on going!

[Na Horuk]

I was just thinking about the ton's of electronics built into a modern day DSLR, and was wondering what the life expectancy of a camera such as the K3-ll would really be?

I think this is usually expressed as the shutter count rating. Basically, shutter is the mechanism that moves for every photo, and it can only be activated so many times. But for modern DSLRs this is in the 100,000+ numbers (depends on camera, and manufacturers do not always publish this date. You can do some online digging to find it). Many cameras have reportedly gone way beyond the official rating. And many components in a DSLR can still be changed if they break down. Whether the repair makes sense economically is another issue. Sometimes things like motherboard or CPU can fail, but relatively rarely. Its unexpected, but it has happened to some people. Since this is a forum, we often see "worst case scenarios".
But this brings us to the next point:

I think that in this day and age, in most cases a digital camera will become obsolete well before it breaks down.

Yep. Some cameras can last for 5, 10 years easily. In that time, technology will evolve a lot, and you will probably decide to buy another camera, which will have many more features and technology, for a similar or lower price than the previous one.

[pathdoc]

I would probably never have got my K-5 if my *ist-DL hadn't died. However, if the K-1 turns out to live up to the great promise of the best pre-production models I will almost certainly get it before the K-5 dies, probably at or near the 100,000 shutter mark OR if it demonstrates such astounding gains that I cannot professionally refuse it.

[aurele]

I was just thinking about the ton's of electronics built into a modern day DSLR, and was wondering what the life expectancy of a camera such as the K3-ll would really be? Electronics is one of my hobbies, and one of the most common failures in electronic circuits has to be electrolytic capacitors! Over time they basically dry out and short! I'm sure almost all caps are monolithic surface mount caps in camera's, but I'm pretty sure an electrolytic must be used somewhere in cameras most likely for flash. Maybe I'm wrong.

It's been 6 years since i've got the K-x, 40.000 actuations (i did around 30.000 in the last 3 years).

I've beaten it to death, in sands, humidity, rain, mud, dust, moisture, you name it ! It traveled in various bags, usualy with books, a laptop, keys, climbing gear.
Let's face it, i torture this body way more than it should, and still, it survive quite well. Well, almost.

The outside is polished on the border, i've killed the AF module (AF motor works), i've somehow f**ked the right side of the VF wich is always blurred, the metering can be random sometimes.

But hey, i still takes lots of pictures with it, in full manual

You'll change body far before it will die.