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How many actuations?


jfgilbert

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If you wonder how many pictures you have taken with your M8, I think it is available in the exif data. One tag is called "Unique Image ID" and seems to increment by 1 with each picture made. The number I find in mine seems about right for my use, so I believe that it is the picture count.

I found this nifty (free) little program to show the exif data (on Mac):

http://homepage.mac.com/aozer/EV/

You have to save an image as Jpeg and open it in the viewer. The number is shown as an Hex number, that you can easily convert with the Calculator in programmer mode.

Cheers,

Jacques

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As long as the unique id is larger than the image count, this makes sense. There might be actions which could increase the shutter actuation count while the image is deleted or aborted (lens cap on).

 

What programs pick this up? I don't see that field in either IrfanView or Capture One. Does Photoshop show it?

 

scott

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Reveal is another little Mac app that will read the exif directly from M8 DNG files. It also reports actuations in the same way. Example from last image I shot with my M8:

Exif.Photo.ImageUniqueID = 0000000000000000000000000000036d

This translates to 877 actuations. The actual image file number was 726 implying that there were 151 actuations prior to the current, continuous numbering sequence.

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What programs pick this up? I don't see that field in either IrfanView or Capture One. Does Photoshop show it?

 

scott

Photoshop or Lightroom do not show it. I have only seen it in programs that just dump the exif data, like the exif viewer from the link in the post.

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Photoshop or Lightroom do not show it. I have only seen it in programs that just dump the exif data, like the exif viewer from the link in the post.

 

In Photoshop CS2, look under File->File Info->Advanced->Exif Properties->exif:ImageUniqueID. I'm not sure about other versions.

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As long as the unique id is larger than the image count, this makes sense. There might be actions which could increase the shutter actuation count while the image is deleted or aborted (lens cap on).

 

What programs pick this up? I don't see that field in either IrfanView or Capture One. Does Photoshop show it?

 

scott

 

There's a very nice Perl-based program that not only displays EXIF, but lets you edit it too. It works also directly on DNGs. It's called (no surprise!) ExifTool. Here's the URL http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool.

 

Being Perl-based, it's multi-platform. I've used it for quite some time on many types of images, and it has never caused any problems to me.

 

Cheers,

Luca

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There's a very nice Perl-based program that not only displays EXIF, but lets you edit it too. It works also directly on DNGs. It's called (no surprise!) ExifTool. Here's the URL ExifTool by Phil Harvey.

 

Being Perl-based, it's multi-platform. I've used it for quite some time on many types of images, and it has never caused any problems to me.

 

Cheers,

Luca

Nice program. Works well. But I found my 'Unique Image ID" has been reset either by the new firmware or by Solms when it went in for the hardware upgrade? Does anyone know if the new firmware resets this number?

 

Alan

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Nice program. Works well. But I found my 'Unique Image ID" has been reset either by the new firmware or by Solms when it went in for the hardware upgrade? Does anyone know if the new firmware resets this number?

 

Alan

 

It doesn't get reset with firmware updates and to my knowledge the image Unique ID never gets reset. I once reset my M8 so it started counting images from 1 again and the IUID still reads the total amount of shutter actuations. I've also upgradeed/updated firmware from 1.09 to 1.091 then back to 1.09 then up to 1.092 and now have 1.102. IUID is still showing total SA.

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It doesn't get reset with firmware updates and to my knowledge the image Unique ID never gets reset. I once reset my M8 so it started counting images from 1 again and the IUID still reads the total amount of shutter actuations. I've also upgradeed/updated firmware from 1.09 to 1.091 then back to 1.09 then up to 1.092 and now have 1.102. IUID is still showing total SA.

 

My IUID is back down to 19C hex (300 decimal). I had over 5000 images taken before sending it back to Solms for update and repair of sudden death. I was told the camera was working perfectly when they received it. Maybe they changed some other guts of the camera causing the reset.

 

Alan

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