How to Check your Canon Camera Shutter Actuations

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Before You Buy a Used Canon Camera

New camera bodies come out and busy professionals discard their 2 year old camera bodies with wild abandon. They are always looking for an edge, a technical improvement. That's good for all the rest of us who aren't in the business of high output fashion photography. But there's a caveat we all need to be aware of, and that's the shutter count. Every manufacturer places a life on their shutters and in general they are pretty accurate.
There are a lot of other considerations to be aware of, such as dead pixels, burned in dust on the sensor, or non-functioning menu settings. And if you are buying online, you are either dealing with a reputable firm, where you may have a 30 day warranty for checking out the camera, or you are buying from an individual without a warranty of any kind. But for the purpose of this article, I am focusing only on a camera you can field test before buying, or your own camera.

 How to test for shutter actuation's.

It used to be that only 1D Canon bodies were capable of counting and retrieving shutter actuation's. While not all of Canon's DSLR's are capable on their own today, many of them are capable of this through an Active-X control piece of code. The website which has been offering this since February of 2012 is eoscount, and after checking the site's safety through websiterecord it appears safe.

There is also an app for Windows or Mac operating systems at Direct Studio for $1.99 through Oct 2014. Download to your device that your camera is connected to and power the camera on.

And if you decide to try out a shutter count on a single image, you can get the shutter count by going to Camera Shutter Count. And all of the following Canon models are supported. Some model names are from another country outside the United States.

  • Rebel XS / 1000D / Kiss F
  • Rebel XSi / 450D / Kiss X2
  • Rebel T1i / 500D / Kiss X3
  • Rebel T2i / 550D / Kiss X4
  • Rebel T3 / 1100D / Kiss X50
  • Rebel T5 / 1200D / Kiss X70
  • Rebel T3i / 600D / Kiss X5
  • Rebel T4i / 650D / Kiss X6i
  • Rebel T5i / 700D / Kiss X7i
  • Rebel SL1 / 100D / Kiss X7
  • 40D
  • 50D
  • 60D
  • 70D
  • 7D
  • 6D
  • 5D Mark II
  • 5D Mark III
  • 1D Mark IV
  • 1D X
  • 1D C
  • Notice the 5D (Mark I), the 1D Mark III, and the 1Ds Mark III are not supported because of their Digic II and Digic III sensors, nor are the M models (mirrorless).

By the way, if you want to check for dead pixels, place your lens cap on, assure you are at the camera's base ISO, usually ISO 100 and shoot. Open the image file on your computer at 100% magnification and examine for missing or dead pixels. All sensors have dead pixels, some only one, some have a dozen or many more. Don't worry if you have a few, unless they are all in one block, which on an enlarged print may show and be distracting, or worse, cause the buyer, or you, if you wish to gift it or hang it, to look for another camera.





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