EXIF

[ben4130]

September 8, 2008 at 9:47 pm

Does anybody know how i can check the exif data to see how many shots ive taken with my camera.
thanks
b

[petercox]

September 9, 2008 at 5:32 am

Ben –
It depends on the camera. For Canon cameras, only the 1D series shows the shutter actuations in the EXIF data. Apparently Canon themselves can determine shutter actuations with their own (closely guarded) diagnostic software, but the information isn’t reliably encoded in the EXIF.

There are rumours floating around about a formula that can be used to determine shutter actuations from a field in the EXIF of a JPEG, but those appear to be unreliable – using that formula on different files that were taken close together can give wildly different results.

I’m not sure about other camera makes – but the best way to check is to download an EXIF analysis programme and go through the data yourself. A lot more gets stored in EXIF than is shown in Lightroom/Bridge, etc.

For example, here’s the complete EXIF dump for a recent photograph of mine:

http://www.petercox.ie/exif.txt

You can find Windows and Mac versions of an EXIF dumper here: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9971 and http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/25275

Cheers,
Peter

[ben4130]

September 9, 2008 at 11:32 am

Hi thanks for that, I had a look at one of those versions and it didnt seem to tell me what i wanted to know.
If its any use i use a nikon d3 and osx.
Im really just trying to get a shutter actuation count more than anything