A900/A850 with >65k shutter actuations - anyone?

Any member here with an A900/A850 which has a somehow proven shutter actuation of more than 65535 and is able to provide an original JPG or RAW file to further help on decoding special Sony Tags

It still needs to be further clarified, but it somehow looks like there's a possibility to read out the shutter actuation via the Sony makernotes, at least there has been identified tags which seem to act as counters and contain high and low byte from which the shutter count can be calculated finally.

• See Mi-Fo forum (sorry - German) here.

Anyone

Double checked on my A900 and it matches to my overall tracked image numbering.

oh my, someone please check this, can someone translate what they're saying in the forum and possibly post the tool? I'll check it on my other sony cameras too, to make sure it works on all cameras.

I did just check my A700 and the number there does not match. I doubt that my A700 have run over 65K.

The newly bought A900 might showing correct, it was almost new and in pristine condition so it feels OK

For you how does not want to translate and try to figure it out, below is the command to run:
replace your_file_that_you_want_to_check with the filename including ARW or jpg

Do the math, shutter count = Sony_CameraInfo2_0x0139 + 256 * Sony_FocusInfo_0x0847
In my example I got Sony_CameraInfo2_0x0139 to 37 and Sony_FocusInfo_0x0847 to 6 i.e. 37 + 256 * 6= 1573

Hope that I got it right, otherwise correct me please

Windows:

exiftool -v -u -U your_file_that_you_want_to_check | find "Sony_CameraInfo2_0x0139"
exiftool -v -u -U your_file_that_you_want_to_check | find "Sony_FocusInfo_0x0847"

Mac

exiftool -v -u -U your_file_that_you_want_to_check | grep "Sony_CameraInfo2_0x0139"
exiftool -v -u -U your_file_that_you_want_to_check | grep "Sony_FocusInfo_0x

What do you need here Micoland? Just a file with a count over 65K?

I always rename from zero, so I cannot verify. But I'm fairly sure of being over 65K on one a900 body. Do you just need a jpg to check something?

Not really understanding the request here. I downloaded the program for mac and can't make sense out of anything for file numbering, even after using Rob Lewis droplets.

You can try This Image... One of my last downloads from last week.

Exiftool in first place is a command line tool

You have to open a cmd window in the directory where exiftool.exe is located (in case you don't have included the exiftool path in the environment variable); then you need to enter the following command:

exiftool -v -u -U "d:\example\filename1234.arw" | findstr "Sony_FocusInfo_0x0846 Sony_FocusInfo_0x0847 Sony_FocusInfo_0x0848"

where "d:\example\filename1234.arw" is the file on your HDD you want to extract the info.

Of interest are the following three reported tags as found out by Mi-fo member Hans-J.:

• a = value of Sony_FocusInfo_0x0846
  
• b = value of Sony_FocusInfo_0x0847
  
• c = value of Sony_FocusInfo_0x0848

then the calculation is as follows:

shutter count = (c << 16) + (b << 8) + a = (c * 2^16) + (b * 2^8) + a = 65536*c + 256*b + a

As an example the following is reported in one of my randomly chosen A900 files which would somehow fit:
| | | | Sony_FocusInfo_0x0846 = 144
| | | | Sony_FocusInfo_0x0847 = 52
| | | | Sony_FocusInfo_0x0848 = 0
=> shutter count = 256*52+144 = 13456

The file Clyde|Photosopher provided would give the following:
| | | | Sony_FocusInfo_0x0846 = 248
| | | | Sony_FocusInfo_0x0847 = 3
| | | | Sony_FocusInfo_0x0848 = 2
=> shutter count = 132088


@Clyde: Is this high number of actuations reasonable?
And do you still have older original images when the camera had less then 131K / 65k on the mark to double check if "Sony_FocusInfo_0x0848" really is used here as it currently looks like?

I just finished today's downloads. This is the last image shot of the three cards. Over two thousand images today from thirty portrait sessions. This should be somewhere around 2500 to 2700 shots after the image from my previous post from last weeks shoots.

Very interested to see if the numbers add up.
(edit - see later post)

I'll pull earlier shots sometime this week. But busy spring time is hitting fast. I'll get to it as fast as possible.

Thanks!

Edited by Photosopher - 15 April 2013 at 18:59

First: Thanks to Micholand for the instructions.

Second: Following those instructions (on a Mac), I have checked early and late files made with my a850, my first a900 (which was stolen) and my second a900. The numbers are believable and seem exact. The reported shutter count on the a850 (purchased June 2010) is 36418, so I can't confirm that "0x0848" reports the 2^16 value.

Third: So far I:
- export the file from Aperture
- copy the file name from Finder
- in TextEdit, using the template Micholand provided, compose the three Terminal commands by pasting in the file name
- copy and paste into Terminal (opened in the folder to which the files were exported) and run each command line separately
- input the numbers into a spreadsheet that does the calculation

An suggestions for automating this? It sure would be nice to run a single command on a file selected in Finder and get back the shutter count as recorded in that file .