How to Find Out the Total Shutter Actuations of your DSLR

Perhaps you have been enjoying your DSLR very much and are curious if the shutter on your beloved DSLR has approached its life expectancy. Here are some information on how to find out the total shutter actuations.

For both Windows and Mac OS X users, the best tool to use is the ExifTool by Phol Harvey. Simply run the following command in a Windows command window or in Mac’s Terminal window (Replace MyPhoto with the photo file you want to get the shutter count):

exiftool -ShutterCount MyPhoto

ExifTool is a very powerful command-line utility. In Windows, simply drag and drop the photo over its default name “exiftool(-k).exe” and a console window will show you all the Exif information. 

You can rename it to “exiftool(-k -a -u -g1 -w txt).exe” to get it to write the Exif information into a text file. This assumes that the shutter actuation count is actually recorded in the Exif.

For more details on how to use ExifTool, please check out the software’s website.

Alternatively, you can try to use software such as PhotoME or Opanda iExif.

Canon DSLR users may want to check out the utility program called EOSInfo (a Windows only program). Please note the following on the EOSInfo website.

The shutter count information is available *only* on Canon DIGIC III/IV DSLRs *except* the 1D* series. This means that EOSInfo will display the shutter counter for the 40D, the 50D, the 450D, 500D, and the 1000D. It will also show the shutter counter for the 5DMkII, but the camera must be power-cycled before the value is updated. The shutter counter will not be displayed (or will be displayed as “0″) on the 1D*, 5D, 10D, 20D, 30D, 300D, 350D, and 400D. It’s not that I have anything against the owners of those cameras, but simply that the Canon SDK does not support retrieving the shutter count for them. UPDATE (08/06/2009): Apparently, Canon has removed the facility for checking the shutter count on the 500D …

If you cannot seem to find the total shutter actuations of your camera, it is possible that the information is not there. The camera manufacturer may choose not to implement it, or it may be hidden somewhere in the camera but not written to the image file.

Posted in: Digital photography, Miscellaneous on June 28th, 2007. Trackback URI
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Comments

  • odelio

    hi there…i’m really confused because i’m new in DSLR and mine is D80…. i just want to ask if for example my D80 shutter meets the average numbers of actuations which is 368,092.4, does it mean it will no longer work? or do I have to change the my whole D80???please help….

    thanks in advance

    • vingur

      Hi odelio, Im allso new to dslr, just bought the EOS 50D. anyway when the shutter meets the average numbers of actuations that simply just means that you have to get a new shutter. it does not mean that you can just throw the camera away. But I dont recommend you changing the shutter by yourself, have someone fix it for you. Best regards

      • http://dptnt.com/ picmax

        The shutter life expectancy is just an average number. Some can laster much longer than the average. If it is not broken there is no need to replace it.

        Max

      • Kathy

        PhotoME is a free download that is SAFE. After you download it, go to any photo that you haven’t edited. Right click photo OPEN WITH……..select PhoteME, and you will see lots of data on the screen. In the 3rd group, look for SHUTTER ACTUATIONS & the number will be there. This programs beats the others hands down.

        • janathan

          i did not fine the shutter actuation in PHOTO ME :( (((

  • http://www.katemackley.com Kate Mackley

    If you have a Flickr account, just post an UNEDITED photo, straight from your Nikon camera (don’t know if it works with Canon, etc) to Flickr and enable exif data. The shutter actuations will show as “total number of shutter releases for camera.” This does not work with photos that have been edited via Adobe products.

  • ManhCamMan

    Hi everyone! Can you tel me how to remove this “total number of shutter releases for camera” parameter ? please!

  • Tony M

    The person who gave the advice about Flickr was right…I just did it.

  • Andrew

    Its not that there is a parameter. Its just that after a while the shutter tires out and may stop working, as my did the other day. Its not something you can predict.

  • Ralf Hettler

    Hi !
    I installed Exif tool and then I tried to find out the shutter count of some files on my hHD
    I’m not familiar with that kind of TERMINAL > What I got is this :

    Last login: Tue Jan 27 10:48:22 on ttyp1
    Welcome to Darwin!
    iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$ exiftool -ShutterCount “/Volumes/ANNIKA\ 2/08.12.15\ Guille\ TENNIS/\ RAW\ Guille\ Tennis/IMG_1007.CR2″
    File not found: /Volumes/ANNIKA\ 2/08.12.15\ Guille\ TENNIS/\ RAW\ Guille\ Tennis/IMG_1007.CR2
    iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$ /IMG_1007.CR2
    -bash: /IMG_1007.CR2: cannot execute binary file
    iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$ /000000647661_Large.jpg
    -bash: /000000647661_Large.jpg: cannot execute binary file
    iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$ exiftool -ShutterCount “/IMG_1007.CR2″
    iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$ exiftool -ShutterCount “/IMG_1007.CR2″
    iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$ exiftool -ShutterCount “/000001627063_Large.jpg”
    iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$ iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$ exiftool -ShutterCount
    -bash: iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~: command not found
    iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$ exiftool -ShutterCount
    No file specified
    iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$ /IMG_1007.CR2
    -bash: /IMG_1007.CR2: cannot execute binary file
    iMac-PPC-20-iSight:~ admin$

    Can you tell me what is going wrong ?
    THANKS

    • http://dptnt.com/ picmax

      Looks like it is either not finding the image file or not able to run the exiftool program. I’d suggest you try this:

      1) cd to the directory where the image file is.

      2) run the tool like this: /full-path-to-exiftool/exiftool -ShutterCount .

      If you have the exiftool in /usr/bin/ directory and the image is IMG_1007.CR2, it would be something like this:

      /usr/bin/exiftool -ShutterCount IMG_1007.CR2

      All command and file names are case sensitive on unix-like systems.

      Max

  • Alan

    Thanks for the ExifTool + Terminal command. Worked like a charm. Shutter count on my D200 is 4110. What a shame.

    Anyway, here are more detailed steps for Mac users only:
    1. Take a photo with your camera
    2. Transfer it to your computer
    3. Place the photo onto your Desktop (for the sake of simpler and shorter location path)
    4. Right-click the photo and choose “Get Info”
    5. Copy the location path under “Where”; it should be something like “/Users/blah-blah-blah/Desktop”
    6. Download ExifTool application
    7. Run the installer
    8. Once installed, quit installer
    9. Launch Terminal application
    10. Once launched and ready, type in the following command line: exiftool -ShutterCount /Users/blah-blah-blah/Desktop/title-of-your-photo.jpg
    11. Hit RETURN button

    Note that the Terminal command line is case-sensitive. Moreover, don’t forget any spaces, dashes, slashes. Blah-blah-blah is the name of your Home folder (whatever you call it). Title-of-your-photo is the name of your photo, ending in “.jpg” or “.JPG”. Makes a difference. Good luck!

  • Greg

    That PhotoME program is excellent! Thanks for the tip.

  • Andrew

    To save time you can just upload an image to http://www.camerashuttercount.com/ and it will return the shutter count.

  • T

    Guys, on a Mac, there’s really no need to install anything… just open the DNG (raw) file in Preview. Then Tools > Inspector, select the EXIF tab and/or Nikon tab. Every bit of the data that’s in there is displayed.

  • http://www.shutteractuations.com Shutter Actuations

    how to find out my nikon 5D MKII shutter count? anyway for the nikon camera you can just upload your photo to http://www.shutteractuatuions.com to check out your nikon shutter count instantly.

  • Onecanucl

    With Olympus it is built into the camera, a few buttons pressed and all that info is available.

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