Author Topic: Shutter actuations  (Read 7661 times)

Offline gwk

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Shutter actuations
« on: May 17, 2007, 10:13:51 PM »
There has been a lot of chatter on other forum sites about how difficult and inaccurate it is to determine the total number of shutter actuations on Canon digital cameras. The latest version of Photo Mechanic has this feature. I would like to know how accurate/reliable ths shutter actuation number is as provided by Photo Mechanic. Thank you.

Offline FVlcek

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Re: Shutter actuations
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2007, 02:10:25 AM »
Well I heard that only the "1" series cameras from Canon have an accurate counter. After all PM reads whatever it finds in the EXIF data in the photo. I am sure all of their cameras have a hidden counter stored in the non-volative memory onboard the camera, but usually this is accessible only trough service software communicating directly with the camera (that was the case with Nikon cameras, although their EXIF counter worked well). At least when I talked with NPS about some nikons they told me there are logs stored in the camera of all errors and similar things, accessible by them (incidentally, the log didn't have the intermittent shutter error I have had few years ago with D70, so I had a harder time getting a replacement from them :-( ). I guess the Canons have some internal memory for this as well. Not much good answer to your question, but that's all I know :) Frantisek

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: Shutter actuations
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2007, 06:20:18 AM »
There has been a lot of chatter on other forum sites about how difficult and inaccurate it is to determine the total number of shutter actuations on Canon digital cameras. The latest version of Photo Mechanic has this feature. I would like to know how accurate/reliable ths shutter actuation number is as provided by Photo Mechanic.

It can be accurate or inaccurate depending on the camera model, and whether or not the camera settings have been copied from one body to another.

The 1D/1Ds cameras can have an accurate count, but this count can be made inaccurate if the camera settings from one body have been copied to another.  The only true shutter actuation count can be accessed by special software tools only available to Canon technicians.

-Kirk