The alpha shutter count tool

Greetings!

I am proud to announce the launch of a tool for reading the number of shutter actuations a SONY alpha camera has made!
The method for A850/A900 was discovered by people on the mi-fo.de forum, so cheers to them! (Thanks Micholand for providing the starting info!)
http://tools.science.si/index.php
Since I was searching for a way to do this on SONY cameras for a couple of years now, this was all that I needed, and my breakthrough was fast.
I can now successfully read the number from ORIGINAL RAW, CRAW or JPEG (re-sizing breaks the exif for example) images from the following cameras:
- A55
- A850/A900
- A99
Support for the following cameras will be added very soon (a week or so):
- A500
- A700
- A77

For other cameras I will require sequential shots from that model (at least 5 or preferably more).
I will publish instructions later, but you can PM me already with questions.

There are some interesting discoveries:
1) The shutter count in a file shows the number of actuations before the current image was taken
2) first curtain on/off makes no difference, the counter always counts only one actuation
3) Panoramas in the DSLTs make from 33 to 50 (or maybe more) actuations for a single image!
4) Multi shot iso mode and hand-held twilight also make multiple actuations (this is clearly audible)
5) If your shutter was changed (due to being broken for example), the counter is reset to 0.

http://tools.science.si/index.php
Please don't abuse the tool too much, as it currently sits on a not-so-powerful server and with relatively slow upload speed (about 20Mps).
Any info is available if anyone wants to make offline applications.

Regards,
Borut

.........................................
UPDATE OCT. 2018

So, another update, pretty significant one as well.

The good stuff first:
- expanded support for new E and A-mount (7rm3, 9, 99m2, etc ...)
- up to 1000x faster (read below for more info)
- source code now completely free and open

The bad stuff:
- no more option of providing a link (you need to download the photo to your computer and "upload" it to the tool

The 'meh' stuff:
- old tool will still be available for a while

The gruesome details
I've rewritten the whole application, so that it now runs on your computer - in the internet browser - instead of on the server.
The benefits are:
- files no longer need to be uploaded, saving bandwidth on both ends.
- only the file header is read and processed, which is blazingly fast
- many files can be processed simultaneously
- code for reading is "readable" in the source html of the tool, if people want to "roll their own"
- no more exploits trying to infest my server

The tool should work on all modern browsers. If you have any specific issues or requests, let me know here or via a private message.

Best regards,
Guy

Edited by stiuskr - 13 October 2018 at 12:42

Excellent - I haven't tried it, as I don't have any of the supported cameras, but have been following the discussion and am looking forward to the A77 version. I can probably supply some A100 and A350 images if you want to try and add those (assuming they were included back then).

As an aside, any sign of the camera serial number hidden in the Exif yet? :-)

I tried it with my A55 and received a believable result. (How did you make that work? The exiftool method does not work with this camera model.)

For further study: I wonder how the count is incremented for various modes that require multiple exposures but only produce one file, such as HDR and Multi-Frame NR, and for custom WB exposures.

Kilkry wrote: He mentions in the OP that every automatic multi-exposure mode raises the count by several :)

Oops - missed that.

sybersitizen wrote: (How did you make that work? The exiftool method does not work with this camera model.)

Ah, never mind. The answer is right there on the output page... cool!

I got this result:

shutter count tool wrote: (65536 * ) + (256 * ) + = 0

Any ideas?

Missing multiplier?

ABDurbs wrote: homeranger wrote: Borut, thank you for your good work on this. I know everyone here appreciates your efforts and generosity in sharing what you've discovered.

+1

Oh yes, sorry, I didn't mean to be negative! Really, this could be a huge asset for the entire mount as far as I'm concerned. But it would need to work, I'm not sure it works yet, or at least not for me.