If you have ever wondered what your actual shutter count is, you might have stumbled over a few applications to download (EXIF Viewer etc.). If you have at least Apple Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or 10.6 (Snow Leopard), there is a much simpler and faster way however. This works with pretty much all Nikon Digital Cameras and I am assuming most Canon DSLRs as well.
The one thing you have to be sure of is you either have to do this with an unprocessed RAW file or a JPG file straight from the camera. For some reason a straight export from Lightroom 3 or Aperture 3 does not contain the same information. Or if it does, it won’t show it wit this method.
Step 1: locate your File, RAW or JPG from the camera
Step 2: Open it with Preview. Right click and then click OPEN WITH -> Preview:
Step 3: In preview hit the keys: CMD + i, to open the inspector:
Step 4: Click on the Nikon Tab (or Canon if it is there) and you can see the shutter count in the list of data. Be also aware that there is much more EXIF data that you can have a look at if you are curious.
This is a quick trick to see the actual shutter count in case you buy a used camera and are not sure how to get that data out. Take a shot, open with preview and voilá, you can see if the seller is telling the truth.
Hope this helps some of you.
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Tried this with Canon 20D and it didn’t provide the shutter count for either .JPEG or RAW. FYI.
yea, I noticed that as well.I used an old 5d mark 2 file and there is no Canon tab. sorry about that.
I have an iMac with Snow Leopard version 10.6.7, and I have no idea how to find “preview” to open an image. Is this part of the OS or Aperture? Thanks
Hi this is part of your OS. it is located in the Applications folder, simply called Preview. Also every time you open a jpg or a pdf file you are using Preview.
thanks for ur information….it is very useful info for me….
Fantastic! Thanks for the tip.. This is the simplest way and no extra programs needed. I don’t understand why iPhoto doesn’t display the same info.
This worked a treat for me – thanks very much. It done exactly what you said!!!
Excellent.