Total number of shutter releases for camera - permanency of EXIF info

DoctorIt · July 18, 2006

I figured it would be a good idea to find out how many actuations are on the D2H I'm selling. I googled the topic and was directed to a useful thread on Sportsshooter, which in turn lead me to downloading the Opanda Exif viewer (PC only, bummer, had to do it at work).

Installed the freeware and opened up an untouched jpg taken with the D2H this morning. In the exif field entitled "total number of shutter releases for camera" it said only 3518.

:scratch

I'm the second owner of this camera, and my own file numbering (which I reset soon after I got the camera) is at 2973. It took me about a week before learning enough to be able to do this, so the 3518 jives perfectly with the number of images I've taken while owning it. I believe the exif viewer because several sportsshooters on that thread reported reading numbers in the tens of thousands from their respective Nikons.

My question is: would a full Nikon factory service zero out the exif? The previous owner had it serviced before sending it to me.

DoctorIt · July 19, 2006

So no one knows what a factory service entails?

Malte · July 19, 2006

Nope, not me. I would guess that they would reset it, but only if they replaced the shutter with a fresh one as part of the service.

Malte

DoctorIt · July 19, 2006

replaced shutter would make sense - i don't think this one was, however.

motivation behind this is curiosity anyway. EXIF is a pretty dark art as far as I'm concerned. There's all these fields that some cameras read, some programs read, some programs write, some fields that glow in the dark, some that only come out on the second friday of each month... you get the idea.

claudermilk · July 19, 2006

If you want to see everything in the EXIF, take a look at Exiftool. It does the best job of extracting what's hidden in there that I've seen.

Vich · July 19, 2006

I had my 20D in service twice (both just for cleaning, calibration). Both times they updated the firmware level. Both times the counter got reset.

Mitchell · July 19, 2006

Erik,
My understanding (from Nikon) is that they reset the number only after replacing the shutter. Any idea what service was performed prior to your purchase? Perhaps the shutter was replaced.

DoctorIt · July 19, 2006

Mitchell wrote:

Erik,
My understanding (from Nikon) is that they reset the number only after replacing the shutter. Any idea what service was performed prior to your purchase? Perhaps the shutter was replaced.

That sounds right, but unfortunately, I don't know exactly what was done. The only question I really asked the seller at the time was "did it have the meter fix?" (known D2H issue). Besides that, i was just happy to get a good deal on a D2H that had any sort of servicing by Nikon before it was coming to me.

but like I said, my real question here was how permanent the exif data actually is. Clearly the answer is - not that permanent.

erich6 · July 20, 2006

Which field gives you the shutter actuation info? I've got the Canon 20D.

Erich

DoctorIt · July 20, 2006

erich6 wrote:

Which field gives you the shutter actuation info? I've got the Canon 20D.

Erich

If you downloaded the Opanda viewer from my first post, there should be a "total number of shutter release for camera" field. Although, maybe its different in Canon? Definitely need a good exif viewer, I've never seen this come up even in Adobe Bridge.

hgernhardtjr · July 20, 2006

DoctorIt wrote:

If you downloaded the Opanda viewer from my first post, there should be a "total number of shutter release for camera" field. Although, maybe its different in Canon? Definitely need a good exif viewer, I've never seen this come up even in Adobe Bridge.

Opanda does NOT give the actuation count of the Canon 20D or 30D. I have not been able to discover an actuation count with these two cameras using any software I have access to, although I am sure Canon Service has a way. Perhaps some programmer will figure out a method to display the 20D and 30D actuations if it is at all possible. Currently Canon actuation count is only available with the 1D series, and MAYBE for the 5D. Opanda will read and display the 1D actuations.

erich6 · July 21, 2006

hgernhardtjr wrote:

Opanda does NOT give the actuation count of the Canon 20D or 30D. I have not been able to discover an actuation count with these two cameras using any software I have access to, although I am sure Canon Service has a way. Perhaps some programmer will figure out a method to display the 20D and 30D actuations if it is at all possible. Currently Canon actuation count is only available with the 1D series, and MAYBE for the 5D. Opanda will read and display the 1D actuations.

Yeah, I downloaded the Opanda viewer and couldn't get the record tag for actuations. There are a few unlabeled records with tons of numbers. I googled this and basically nobody's been able to figure it out. What makes this more complicated is that some of the numbers are 8-bit some are 16-bit and you have to combine them in some MOD operation to even get a physically meaningful value.

Eventually everyone gives up and says oh well...if/when the shutter gives out I'll worry about it then. I agree, but it would be useful to know if buying/selling a used camera.

Erich

P.S. The only thing I've been able to use is the continuous file numbering scheme with my 20D. I think it works like this: folder labels starts at 100 and each folder can hold 100 images so if you are at folder 248 with 66 images then the # of actuations should be 148*100+66 or 14,866.

Jeffro · July 21, 2006

I have no idea how to count the total number of shutter activations on my 20D, or my Digital Rebel. For that matter I have no idea how to count the number of shutter activations on my Canon AE-1 program or Rebel XS either....uh oh! What will I do?

Wait I know....keep shooting!:D

claudermilk · July 22, 2006

I don't get the shutter count fixation. Shoot until it breaks, that's what it's for.

Richard · July 22, 2006

claudermilk wrote:

I don't get the shutter count fixation. Shoot until it breaks, that's what it's for.

If you are buying a second hand camera, it is nice to know the mileage. Same thing if you are selling one, as people will reasonably want to know.

claudermilk · July 23, 2006

I can understand that, though you know that at best unless it's a 1-series it's a guess. What I don't get is people not intending to buy or sell getting fixated on it, which seems to be the majority asking.

aurhyne · March 8, 2007

How to use Opanda for Canon 1D Mark II actuations

hgernhardtjr wrote:

Currently Canon actuation count is only available with the 1D series, and MAYBE for the 5D. Opanda will read and display the 1D actuations.

How do you use Opanda to read the shutter actuations for the Canon 1D Mark II? Any help is appreciated.

aurhyne · March 9, 2007

aurhyne wrote:

How do you use Opanda to read the shutter actuations for the Canon 1D Mark II? Any help is appreciated.

I got an e-mail from Opanda that states their product cannot determine shutter actuations for the Canon 1D series. The e-mail is below.

Original Message

From: Admin Opanda /COLOR][EMAIL="opandasoft@hotmail.com"][U][COLOR=#0000ff]mailto:opandasoft@hotmail.com[/COLOR][/U][/EMAIL][COLOR=#0000ff
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 3:15 PM
To: AURHYNE
Subject: RE: Canon 1D Mark II actuations
Importance: High

Canon don't put the actuation data into photo as a part of Exif information.
So opanda can't read it out from Exif data. But some model of Nikon DSLR can.
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Total number of shutter releases for camera - permanency of EXIF info

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