How do you check the shutter speed of your camera?

The shutter speed / number of shots / shuttercount is important information when selling a camera, as well as when buying one. It indicates the mechanical condition of the camera, and its expected lifetime. The shutter life of a camera is not specified in any precise way, but you can usually get an indication by searching Google ”[camera model] shutter life expectancy”

If the camera is stated by the manufacturer to last 200 000 shots, and the shutter speed is 100 000, it can be assumed that the camera is roughly halfway through its lifetime. However, this is not an absolute value, the camera will not break down by itself when the number of shots reaches ”full”, but at this point it is already good to be prepared for the possibility of a shutter replacement.

There are often different ways to find out the shutter speed of your camera, here we list what we think are the safest and easiest ways to find out. Different camera brands have different ways of finding out the shutter speed, so we have divided the ways between the different brands.

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Canon is the black sheep of the bunch, which does not store the number of images in the EXIF data of the file (usually). Our absolute favourite is the ShutterCount software from the Apple Store - https://apps.apple.com/fi/app/shuttercount/id720123827

This software reliably reads the shutter speed of almost all Canon cameras. The only major drawbacks are that it is only available for Apple and costs 9,90€ at the time of writing. We use this software at Foto Monza.

Others worth mentioning are https://www.camerashuttercount.com/ a website where an image is uploaded and it reads the shutter speed of the image. This works with a limited number of cameras.

Another option is the EOS Info download for Windows - https://sourceforge.net/projects/canon-eos-digital-info/. Even this software's ability to read the shutter speed is limited to certain models. The software does not support the latest cameras (at least at the time of writing)

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With Nikon it's extremely simple, Nikon stores all the data in the EXIF data of the image and it can be read from every model on Camerashuttercount.com - https://www.camerashuttercount.com/

• Go to https://www.camerashuttercount.com/ on the website
• Send the most recent photo you took (NOTE: the photo must be taken directly from the camera, not via Lightroom or similar) JPG or NEF
• The site will tell you the shutter speed of your camera, and possibly the expected lifetime and life-cycle percentage.

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As with Nikon cameras, Fujifilm and Sony store the shutter speed in the EXIF data of the image.

• Go to https://apotelyt.com/camera-exif/shutter-count-finder on the website
• Send us your most recent photo (NOTE: the photo must be taken directly from the camera, not via Lightroom or similar) - JPG only!
• The site tells you the shutter speed of your camera

Note! In today's mirrorless cameras, it is possible to shoot with an electronic shutter, or the camera does not necessarily have a mechanical shutter at all. The use of an electronic shutter does not ”strain” the camera, nor does it wear out the camera, hence it is not recorded as a shutter speed. So you can get very moderate shutter speeds with this type of camera.

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Olympus & OM cameras record shutter operation directly to the camera, getting a reading requires a little finger fiddling with the camera.

• Turn on the camera while holding MENU-button on the bottom
• Go to the camera menus and find Spanner icon and its submenu LCD brightness and ORIGINAL-arrow key
• Click to copy INFO-key, followed by OK-button. The screen should turn black and read numbers
• Press in order YLÖS - ALAS - VASEN - ORIGINAL - BREAKFAST - YLÖS
• The screen should display various readings and information (you are on page 1)
• On page 2 ( OIKEA arrow ) you will find the words MS or R which are pictures taken with a mechanical shutter. ES means electronic shutter.

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With Panasonic, as with OM cameras, you need a bit of dexterity. The instructions differ slightly depending on the model of camera. Therefore we link to this site where you can find all the instructions

• https://apotelyt.com/camera-find/panasonic-g-shutter-count

As there is a slight difference between reading the instructions and actually doing it, here is a Youtube video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPUKD3C4EP8

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