Quick Way To Determine Shutter Count

Looking for a quick way to find out the shutter count on your DSLR cameras? MyShutterCount.com allows you to upload an image from the camera in question and it will tell you how many times the shutter has been used. MyShutterCount.com supports Nikon's NEF, Pentax's DNG and PEF, and JPG.

Helpful notes: The shutter life expectancy for the Nikon D90 is 100,000 actuations; the shutter count for the Nikon D7000 is 150,000.

Click here to view previous posts on determining shutter counts.

Check Your Shutter Count

MyShutterCount.com provides a tool for you to check your digital camera shutter count and basic EXIF information. Simply upload a photo which is taken by your digital camera. We will show you the shutter count of your camera instantly. MyShutterCount.com supports Nikon's NEF, Pextax's DNG, PEF, and non-edited JPG formats.

Thanks to friend and photographer Mel Russell for this tip!

Shutter Counts

I received an email from Brother Mel (Mel Russell, Captured Light Photography) that pointed me in the direction of software that reportedly can tell you how many times the shutter on a particular camera has fired. The software is called Opanda and is available for download here. Unfortunately it only works on with Win98 / Me / 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista. Since I am Mac-based, this doesn't do me any good. So I did a little poking around trying to find a similar program that worked on a Mac. Eventually I arrived at Nikon's website and found this in the support section:

"Question: How many times has my Nikon camera released the shutter?

"Answer: There is no way to accurately tell the total number of times your camera shutter has released. While there are third party software applications designed to read a cameras shutter count, this number is not always accurate because the shutter release times may be reset by firmware updates, or reset in the Service Department if certain parts are replaced or other operations are performed."

That's unfortunate! Two of my cameras -- the D80 and D200 -- are rated for 100,000 shutter releases, while my D300 is rated for 150,000. That seems like an awful lot of shutter releases, but I noticed that the photographers in some forums were surprised at how many shutter releases they had racked up when they ran the software mentioned above. Seems like there should be a way to keep an eye on this. If you know of one, let me know...

Shutter Counts Followup

Looks like there are several software programs available that helps track shutter release counts:

Opanda (the program most often recommended)
PhotoMe
Preview Extractor (for Nikon cameras)

While I couldn't find any programs that were written for the Mac platform, all the PC versions can be used on an Intel Mac that has booted into Windows via Bootcamp or other Windows-emulating software.

And then there's brother Mel (Mel Russell, Captured Light Photography). He has offered to run a quick check on .jpg images that folks send him who would like a ballpark idea of how many times the shutters have been released on their cameras without going through the hassle of downloading, installing, and running Exif file programs (like those listed above). If you want Mel to do this for you, email him a low resolution .jpg image shot on the camera you want a shutter release count on.

Mel ran Opanda on two of my cameras, each of which is rated for 100,000 shutter releases:

My D80 = 7,401
My D200 = 28,192

Neither camera has ever been sent in for repairs, and I can't remember if I have updated the firmware on these cameras (remember Nikon says that trips to the repair shop and/or firmware updates can affect the accuracy of these counts). My D200 is about two years old. My D80 is about a year and a half old.

If you have any thoughts/resources that you would like to add to this discussion, click the "comments" link below.