Set max_fails and fail_timeout for all servers in upstream in nginx

All of the examples I've seen of using upstream (for load balancing) in nginx look like this:

upstream  backend  {
  server   backend1.example.com:8080          max_fails=3  fail_timeout=30s;
  server   backend2.example.com:8080          max_fails=3  fail_timeout=30s;
  server   backend3.example.com:8080          max_fails=3  fail_timeout=30s;
}

It seems repetitive to re-set max_fails and fail_timeout for each backend, when typically they are always the same. Is it possible to set max_fails and fail_timeout for all of the backend servers at once?

Specify proxy_upstream_fail_timeout and proxy_upstream_max_fails in your server {} config

See
http://wiki.nginx.org/HttpProxyModule#proxy_upstream_fail_timeout
http://wiki.nginx.org/HttpProxyModule#proxy_upstream_max_fails
For more info