Shutter count request to Canon.

[shannon76]

I just sent this question to Canon today. What's the general opinion on why Canon hasn't added shutter count to the camera's firmware or EOS Utility?

Hello,
A couple days ago I had to pay $1.59 to a website called eoscount.com to check my shutter count. The website has you accept an add-on for Internet Explorer which could very easily be a virus for all we know. The owner of the site, Sergey Vasilevskiy, may be a fine upstanding programmer for all we know. However, does Canon think this is an acceptable way for customers to get information from their expensive DSLR cameras??? We are risking the security of our computers by going to outside websites for this software. Canon's EOS Utility could very easily provide this information if programmed to. So what is the problem? The only acceptable answer to this is Canon is going to add this functionality to the EOS Utility in the next version. The only reason I can see for Canon not adding this functionality is because they are hiding something. So how does Canon respond to this request that shouldn't even be a request?

 

[Loswr]

Canon's response:

Thank you for your inquiry. You can send your camera to the nearest Canon Service Center, and we will happily report the shutter count to you, the charge will be approximately 100x what you paid to the website. Alternatively, you may choose to purchase a camera such as the EOS 1D X, which reports the shutter count on the system status menu of the camera.

Why do you want to know?

 

[shannon76]

Canon's response:

Thank you for your inquiry. You can send your camera to the nearest Canon Service Center, and we will happily report the shutter count to you, the charge will be approximately 100x what you paid to the website. Alternatively, you may choose to purchase a camera such as the EOS 1D X, which reports the shutter count on the system status menu of the camera.

Why do you want to know?

Why wouldn't I want to know? If your car didn't come with an odometer would you be ok with that? lol

 

[jrista]

Canon's response:

Thank you for your inquiry. You can send your camera to the nearest Canon Service Center, and we will happily report the shutter count to you, the charge will be approximately 100x what you paid to the website. Alternatively, you may choose to purchase a camera such as the EOS 1D X, which reports the shutter count on the system status menu of the camera.

Why do you want to know?

Why wouldn't I want to know? If your car didn't come with an odometer would you be ok with that? lol

Much like a car's odometer, a shutter actuation count reading doesn't tell you when your camera is actually going to stop working. Shutter lifetime is an estimation. You might get 400,000 shots out of a 1D X. You might only get 100,000, or even 50,000. For that matter, you might be one of the lucky ones who gets a million shots out of the shutter before it actually goes. The shutter will die when the shutter decides to die. Knowing how close you might be to a potential shutter failure is meaningless, and could quite likely make you replace the shutter unnecessarily if you ARE one of the lucky ones who gets 50%, 100% or more additional life out of their shutter.

 

[Loswr]

Exactly.

My car came with a warranty based both on time and mileage. My car requires recommended servicing at mileage-based intervals. My camera has no warranty or service requirements based on shutter actuations. Do you also want to know the cumulative time of IS operation and the number of aperture stop-downs?

Other than satisfying idle curiosity (which if you gave as your reason, it would make perfect sense to me), or selling the gear (which is technically meaningless, as described above, but buyers want to know), I can't see how the information is at all useful or necessary.

 

[Loswr]

Ps. I think $1.59 is pretty reasonable to satisfy idle curiosity.

 

[picturesbyme]

I disagree with the people who don't care but it's pointless to argue about it...

However... There are free apps for checking the shutter count.
No offense but if you spend the same amount of time you could find progs. that give you the info for free.

Canon still uses those horrid lens caps from the stone age. Charges a ridiculous amount for a lens hood.. etc.. What do you expect from them... ?

 

[rumorzmonger]

Ps. I think $1.59 is pretty reasonable to satisfy idle curiosity.

It's a bit steep to pay for a fictional shutter count, though...

 

[shannon76]

Ok. For those of you that don't mind not having a simple shutter count reading available from the manufacturer. I have a nice 60D I will you sell for $700. It looks like new so it must only have 1000-5000 shots taken right? I have no "official" way of knowing so I'm not responsible for being honest right? And what does it matter anyway, based on your thinking(shutter count doesn't matter)? When in actuality it may have closer to 50,000 pics taken with it. Is this camera really worth $700 or closer to $500 now that you know the actual shutter count? This is just a simple convenience that should be on the camera for knowing the previous usage of the camera. If you say this isn't something that is necessary one can assume you are more interested in avoiding the truth about a camera's condition for what ever reason. Or maybe you just like kissing Canon's ass?

 

[Loswr]

I have a car that has 73,000 miles on it. It's been serviced every 3,500 miles, and driven only for a 10-mile no traffic commute, a few long road trips, and never driven over the speed limit. I'm a little sloppy, so there are a couple stains on the seats and a layer of dust on the dash.

My brother has a car, same make, model, and year, that has 37,000 miles. He took it in for the 3,500 mile service because it was free since the dealer sent him a coupon, after that it's never been serviced. It's been driven over pot-holed, over salted New England roads, driven up Mt. Washington pulling a trailer at 35 mph in 1st gear, and driven hundreds of off-road miles. He's a neat freak and has it hand detailed weekly, so the car looks immaculate.

The car with only 37,000 miles must be in better shape, because of the low mileage. Right?


FWIW, I did acknowledge that selling a camera is a time when the shutter count is useful (although technically meaningless). Also, FWIW, when I sold my 5DII, I got the shutter count using one of the many free utilities available, and listed the count in the ad.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Most of the free apps to check shutter count just plain works of fiction and do not work.
EOS Info is free and does work, but only on certain camera bodies. eos count, the one costing $1.49 has been around for a while now, and is deemed safe. You use paypal to pay, so none of your credit card information is exposed.
I also discovered that Reikan FoCal is returning a correct shutter count for my 5D Mark III, so if you are doing AFMA, its a extra bonus to be able to get the shutter count. I don't know exactly which bodies are supported.

 

[shannon76]

I have a car that has 73,000 miles on it. It's been serviced every 3,500 miles, and driven only for a 10-mile no traffic commute, a few long road trips, and never driven over the speed limit. I'm a little sloppy, so there are a couple stains on the seats and a layer of dust on the dash.

My brother has a car, same make, model, and year, that has 37,000 miles. He took it in for the 3,500 mile service because it was free since the dealer sent him a coupon, after that it's never been serviced. It's been driven over pot-holed, over salted New England roads, driven up Mt. Washington pulling a trailer at 35 mph in 1st gear, and driven hundreds of off-road miles. He's a neat freak and has it hand detailed weekly, so the car looks immaculate.

The car with only 37,000 miles must be in better shape, because of the low mileage. Right?


FWIW, I did acknowledge that selling a camera is a time when the shutter count is useful (although technically meaningless). Also, FWIW, when I sold my 5DII, I got the shutter count using one of the many free utilities available, and listed the count in the ad.

So if your brother took care of his camera like he did his car then the camera would most likely look like it had 200,000+ shutter actuations. But what if you brother took care of this car/camera instead, which at this point may have 200,000 miles/actuations? But oh, the cars odometer isn't working. So based on looks he will sell it to you for what he thinks it's worth which may be a lot more. Aren't you more likely to buy one with a working odometer than this nice looking one with broken odometer?

Regardless of this analogy, the camera is keeping track of shutter clicks somewhere in the software. What is the point of not making it readily available on some cameras? I paid almost $1000 for my camera. I expect all the windows to go down!! So who knows of free software like EOSINfo that works with the 60D? Just curious. I already paid the $1.59 this time to eoscount.com but it seems ridiculous to pay for something that Canon should just address in firmware. Quit being cheap Canon.

 

[shannon76]

Here was Canon's response so far..
Thank you for contacting Canon product support regarding Canon camera.

I do not recommend 3rd party website's such as the one you described but for a different reason, they are generally not accurate. I do not know what is possible to do through the EOS Utility program. I will certainly forward your suggestions to our software team for their consideration.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey
Technical Support Representative

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Here was Canon's response so far..
Thank you for contacting Canon product support regarding Canon camera.

I do not recommend 3rd party website's such as the one you described but for a different reason, they are generally not accurate. I do not know what is possible to do through the EOS Utility program. I will certainly forward your suggestions to our software team for their consideration.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey
Technical Support Representative

That is true - generally, but a few actually use Canon's SDK to get the information. They have discovered by trial and error how to get the information, and its accurate. Canon does not advertise a shutter count in their SDK, but there are lots of undocumented features. Eos info and eos count along with foCal all get information by using the Canon SDK. Most of the others merely look at the image number, which is almost never correct.

 

[pdirestajr]

I want to know how many times I turned the power switch on on my camera, how many times I have pushed the auto focus button down half-way, how many times the spring sprung to pop out my CF card, how many times my battery door flung open, how many times I switched lenses.... What if one of these things goes while I am shooting a critical shot?!

Isn't the "shutter" just one tiny part? WHAT ABOUT THE REST!!!

Ignorance is bliss.

 

[FTb-n]

Shannon76, do me a favor. Try eoscount and get a shutter count of your camera. Take a bunch of pictures and keep track of how many you take. Then try eoscount again. Does the shutter count increase by the number of pictures that you took?

Last winter I bought a refurb 7D from Canon. I used eoscount (it was free then) and was impressed that my refurb body only had a few hundred shutter actuations on it. After taking a couple thousand images, I used eoscount again. It still showed only a few hundred.

There was a time when I took the rated "shutter life" somewhat seriously, particularly when a friend reported that his 50D died around 60,000. But, then I ran across a story that reported the mean shutter count before actual failure as reported by service records. For recent EOS bodies, most were 500,000 or higher. Sorry, I don't recall where I read this story or the details of how they got their numbers, but it convincing enough for me to not worry about. Although, I do agree that it can be one indicator for the use of a used camera -- but, not, necessarily, of the abuse it took.

 

[serendipidy]

Hypothetical situation:

Two guys buy the same expensive Canon DSLR on the same day. One is a casual user who takes some family photos and also a few vacation shots. His camera mostly just sits in his closet. The other guy is a pro who runs a booming wedding photography business. One year later, they both want to sell to upgrade to the latest model that just came out. The first guy's shutter count is 2000 and the second guys count is 300,000. Neither is aware of the number because they didn't check.

Are both cameras equal in value? Should a potential buyer be able to know this? If they were both offered at the same price, I think I would buy the first guy's camera, all else being equal.

Ignorance is bliss.
Knowledge is power

Just my humble opinion.

 

[Ew]

Both Magic Lantern and gPhoto are reliable ways of getting shutter count:

ML also breaks down shutter and LiveView count.

ML: http://vimeo.com/groups/magiclantern/forum/topic:253992

GPhoto: http://photolifetoys.blogspot.com/2012/08/control-your-camera-with-gphoto2-via.html

 

[jVillaPhoto]

Hypothetical situation:

Two guys buy the same expensive Canon DSLR on the same day. One is a casual user who takes some family photos and also a few vacation shots. His camera mostly just sits in his closet. The other guy is a pro who runs a booming wedding photography business. One year later, they both want to sell to upgrade to the latest model that just came out. The first guy's shutter count is 2000 and the second guys count is 300,000. Neither is aware of the number because they didn't check.

Are both cameras equal in value? Should a potential buyer be able to know this? If they were both offered at the same price, I think I would buy the first guy's camera, all else being equal.

Ignorance is bliss.
Knowledge is power

Just my humble opinion.

I agree, I'd definitely want to know the shutter count on a used camera if I'm considering to buy it. EOS Utility / camera firmware should feature a shutter count as well, in my opinion of course.

Will the shutter count tell you exactly how long your camera has left? Will it magically make you a better photographer? Of course not, but no need to bash on the OP, he was only asking a simple question. Instead of helping the guy, we try to make him look like a dummy.. ??? Not cool!

 

[danski0224]

I don't know if knowing the answer would help.

There is no preventative maintenance for a DSLR, unlike a car. You use it until it breaks or buy a new one.

A garage queen car with low miles may seem like a deal, but if you start *using* it, stuff breaks. Fluids need changing, seals harden, brake lines rot from inside out and so forth.

While many DSLR's have rubber seals and gasketing, there is no maintenance schedule. I suspect that most are not "user serviceable". You find out that a seal is bad when the camera fries out in the mist or rain, and then you are probably SOL unless you do quite a bit of business with Canon.

I think that sensor on time would be more meaningful than a shutter count. I bet there is a difference between 100,000 1/1000 actuations and 10,000 actuations lasting 10 minutes each.

In my eyes, as long as the camera is in good physical condition, the shutter count doesn't matter.