Determining Shutter Actuations for Digital Cameras

2013-08-09 • SEND FEEDBACK |
Related: EXIF, shutter, Workflow

There are various EXIF tools around of course, but simplicity is always a plus.

This approach might not work for some brands that omit the value, but it’s easy for the Leica M9 (see also the method I used back in 2006).

1. Open an image in Photoshop or any program that can display the raw EXIF info (on OS X, Apple Preview has a Get Info that will show the info).
2. Find the ImageUniqueID number. This number is in hexadecimal (base 16).
3. Convert the hexadecimal number to base 10. On the Mac, the built-in Apple calculator in programmer mode has buttons for this as shown below (8/10/16).

In this particular example, hexadecimal 0x0001519 is decimal 5401.

Many cameras do not have this info readily evident; it might be a different tag and/or deliberately obfuscated.

• The Nikon Coolpix A has a field “<aux:ImageNumber>242</aux:ImageNumber>” which appears to be the same, but I’m not certain.

Shutter actuation count (EXIF ImageUniqueID is hexadecimal)
(Photshop raw EXIF info)

Shutter actuation count (EXIF ImageUniqueID is hexadecimal)
(OS X Preview Get Info EXIF tab)