  The lifetime of the 3d^2D_5/2-level in singly-ionized calcium has been
measured by the electron-shelving technique on different samples of rf trapped
ions. The metastable state has been directly populated by exciting the
dipole-forbidden 4S_1/2 - 3D_5/2 transition. In ion clouds, the natural
lifetime of this metastable level has been measured to be (1095+-27) ms. For
the single-ion case, we determined a lifetime of (1152+-20) ms. The
1sigma-error bars at the 2%-level have different origins for the two kinds of
experiments: data fitting methods for lifetime measurements in an ion cloud and
control of experimental parameters for a single ion. De-shelving effects are
extensively discussed. The influence of differing approaches for the processing
of the single-ion quantum jump data on the lifetime values is shown. Comparison
with recent measurements shows excellent agreement when evaluated from a given
method.
