How is a camera's shutter actuation count determined?

[Almond.Butterscotch]

For those of you who can remember back to July 22, I posted a thread asking for advice on what to do because my D40 had died and would not turn on.

Anyways, I got my camera back from repairs this past weekend and today I decided I'd go to check how many actuations I had. On July 20th, the day before I left for my trip, I had 23150 actuations and when I checked today (September 11th), I have 4616.

Now, I know that the repairs replaced two things, the battery and something else, but my question is this: does anyone here know how exactly a camera's actuation count is measured?

[KevPeden]

At a GUESS, Its probably an algorithm used by the camera's computer that keeps track of every thing, records it and then then that info is embedded into each JPEG. Did they replace the shutter when it went in for repair, if yes, that probably reset the shutter count to 00000. JUST A VERY BIG GUESS. I just stick an image through EXIF Viewer and out comes all the data. Never wondered how things are calculated. I have contacted Nikon and asked the question. Lets see what they say.

[Almond.Butterscotch]

Well, like I said, the actuations are now in the 4000- well, 5000s now, so I don't think its a reset-based thing (unless they gave it a couple thousand cycles as a test). They may have replaced the shutter though.

[KevPeden]

Hi Almond.Butterscotch.

I have just heard from Nikon UK support ref. shutter actuations. Below is the answer they gave me, word for word:-

Thank you for your email.

Whilst cameras have advanced systems to log when shutter problems occur, unfortunately we can not tell you how many times a shutter has been fired. This information is stored within the camera and not recorded as available data. Camera servicing or replacement of parts may cause information that is recorded by the camera to be incorrect.

Also, due to this we do not offer a service where we can tell customers how many times a shutter has been fired. There are many programs that claim to be able to show this information but we have found that these are not accurate and therefore do not recommend their use.


You can reply to the incident by clicking the link above.
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I will ask again as they have not really answered the question I asked.

[Almond.Butterscotch]

thanks for sending the query, Kev. Honestly, how can they claim that the cameras dont store that information if it is? Electronics are biological, they can't just create their own data and imbed it in every file- it has to be there to be put into the EXIF.