# Canon 1D Mark IV with low actuations?



## tiger82 (Sep 22, 2013)

I have been on the lookout for a great deal on a used Canon 1D Mark IV with low actuations. My idea of low is less than 100K out of the 300k estimated life. I am seeing ads and auctions for bodies with less than 10K and some below 2500!!!! Is it believeable that someone would spend upwards of $6000 and shoot only 2000 images? I can squeeze that many off in one game. I suppose they may have been videographers but would video use entail the same wear and tear as tens of thousands of shutter actuations?

Now that the 1Dx is on the refurb list for mid $5000, I may abandon my search for a $3000 1D4 and get a 1 year warranty.


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## Ewinter (Sep 22, 2013)

I can't answer to the video question, but there are lots of people who buy gear and just leave it on the shelf for months before selling it back to the shop I work in at a loss. This is how I get most of my gear- mint and only 2/3 the new price


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## tiger82 (Sep 22, 2013)

Ewinter said:


> I can't answer to the video question, but there are lots of people who buy gear and just leave it on the shelf for months before selling it back to the shop I work in at a loss. This is how I get most of my gear- mint and only 2/3 the new price



What is the point in buying expensive gear if you won't use it? To me, gear is worth it if I will use it to the point it costs me less than 10 cents an image, ideally 2 cents.


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## Eldar (Sep 22, 2013)

If your main thing is wildlife, looking for the shy and rare, with lots of waiting and nothing to shoot, maybe with more than one body, you don't push the shutter too often. But 2500 is very low.


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## Ewinter (Sep 22, 2013)

tiger82 said:


> Ewinter said:
> 
> 
> > I can't answer to the video question, but there are lots of people who buy gear and just leave it on the shelf for months before selling it back to the shop I work in at a loss. This is how I get most of my gear- mint and only 2/3 the new price
> ...



I have no idea. They're mostly rich people who like their L lenses because they have a red ring, and the status it gives them. I'm happy for them to do it- I get great lenses at amazing prices.
I use my gear- it's a tool, not a collection. I've put 2000 shots on my new 1dx in 3 days, and that's without any sports events happening.
Ultimately, the shutter is worth the cost of replacement on pro bodies, and I didn't buy the camera so it can devalue on the shelf. It'll be losing value in my hands, where it should be


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## Menace (Sep 23, 2013)

*Re: Canon 1D Mark IV with low actuations?p*

2500 Shutter count sounds too low to me. Personally, I'd save up more and get the 1Dx


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## pwp (Sep 23, 2013)

tiger82 said:


> Ewinter said:
> 
> 
> > I can't answer to the video question, but there are lots of people who buy gear and just leave it on the shelf for months before selling it back to the shop I work in at a loss. This is how I get most of my gear- mint and only 2/3 the new price
> ...


The reality is there are plenty of seriously cashed-up amateur gear nuts who just have to have the latest and the best, and go on to give their phone camera more use. There are also cashed up customers that unscrupulous sales people see coming and sell them stuff that is way beyond their needs but well within their budgets. This may explain the very low shutter count 1D MkIV bodies that come up for sale from time to time.

Good luck to the OP if the offer is genuine and the price is right. The MkIV is an incredible high performance camera. Mine has over 500,000 actuations and is all-original. The 300,000 estimated life is misleading and generally highly conservative. My old 5Dc ran up over 400,000 when I gave it to an assistant. It's still going strong. There are plenty of 1-Series bodies in the hands of busy professional news and sports shooters who routinely run up several hundred thousand to a million actuations without problems. 

The only shutters I have ever had replaced are one that I put a thumb through on an EOS 1V film body, and on a 2 day old 5D3 which was exchanged without question. While it's nice to have a genuinely low shutter count body there is far too much significance put on this issue.

-pw


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## Viggo (Sep 23, 2013)

"The only shutters I have ever had replaced are one that I put a thumb through on an EOS 1V film body" That's a big "Oh sh!t" moment right there ;D

My 1d X has passed 55k in a year and I am no pro. Usually 2500 shots is just to warm up to the settings and testing. 

My girlfriend had a 40d that saw almost no use, as she borrowed my mk4, I guessed that it would have around 2000 actuations, ran it through EOScount, and it said 7300 something. Every single add over here states, "approx. 10k actuations" so I wouldn't take it to seriously.


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## Marsu42 (Sep 23, 2013)

tiger82 said:


> Now that the 1Dx is on the refurb list for mid $5000, I may abandon my search for a $3000 1D4 and get a 1 year warranty.



The 1.3x aps-h crop factor might very well make a difference as it uses the center of the lenses which might improve iq plus it's nearly a free 1.4x extender with no iq loss - as far as I understand it cropping from 18mp of the 1dx won't change this. The 1d4 would be my dream camera, but other than pwp wrote I never see good deals in Germany, on the contrary, just like ff in general 1d bodies seem to have such a prestige value that it's out of the question for me.



Viggo said:


> I guessed that it would have around 2000 actuations, ran it through EOScount, and it said 7300 something.



This will take enabling live view or doing "quick af" in lv into account which is also a shutter cycle. Magic Lantern is able to tell you the number of shooting and lv/af mirror flips you have.


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## Don Haines (Sep 23, 2013)

I have a friend who recently lost her 5D2. She was lamenting the fact that she lost every picture she had taken for the last three years. Aparantly, she had never downloaded any of the pictures... This means that every shot ever taken with the camera was still on a single memory card!!!!!!

There are good cameras out there that have been barely used.... There are very few members of the generalpublic that take hundreds of pictures a day. Where a photographer would take a hundred or more pictures to get one "just right" (bird photography...), most snapshooters would take one picture or perhaps two...


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## Marsu42 (Sep 23, 2013)

Don Haines said:


> I have a friend who recently lost her 5D2. She was lamenting the fact that she lost every picture she had taken for the last three years. Aparantly, she had never downloaded any of the pictures... This means that every shot ever taken with the camera was still on a single memory card!!!!!!



Omh - but you might be correct, I recently also met a very nice elderly lady at the local zoo who had been sold a 5d2 including 270ex(!) flash, the way she shot she was maybe also under 1k shutters per year :-o ... but never the less suspicion is advisable, there are just too many nearly never driven used cars around


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## Viggo (Sep 23, 2013)

Are shutters like cars? I mean, a cab that has a thousand times the mileage of a normal car needs much less service and will also last for huge amounts of miles more than a normal car due to the fact that they are being used aaall the time. 

Will a shutter that sees much use every day, last for more actuations than a shutter that's being used once or twice a week/month, couple of hundred shots a year?


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 23, 2013)

I bought mine used, it was supposed to have less than 500, but when I checked it had 1300. There were two on Craigslist at the time virtually unused with about 500 actuations. Some people buy cameras they don't need, and just go back to a P&S because they feel more comfortable.


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