Sony A7C II shutter count seems way off?

Started by wintermute, October 04, 2023, 02:33:53 AM

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wintermute

How do I read the shutter count metadata for the new Sony A7C II?

While I definitely love my new camera, I most definitely didn't take 2 million photos since I got the camera on Saturday, nor was I using mechanical shutter, just electronic at the moment.

These were taken with the electronic shutter, despite exiftool tool saying Mechanical:
```
➜  exiftool -"Shutter*" DSC00226.JPG
Shutter                         : Mechanical (65280 255 41)
Shutter Count                   : 2162688
Shutter Count 2                 : 0
Shutter Speed                   : 1/50
➜  exiftool -"Shutter*" DSC00227.JPG
Shutter                         : Mechanical (65280 255 41)
Shutter Count                   : 2162688
Shutter Count 2                 : 0
Shutter Speed                   : 1/50
```

I then switched to mechanical, shutter count still remained at 2162688, however some numbers next to "Mechanical" changed:

```
➜  exiftool -"Shutter*" DSC00228.JPG
Shutter                         : Mechanical (65280 255 9)
Shutter Count                   : 2162688
Shutter Count 2                 : 0
Shutter Speed                   : 1/50
➜  exiftool -"Shutter*" DSC00229.JPG
Shutter                         : Mechanical (65280 255 9)
Shutter Count                   : 2162688
Shutter Count 2                 : 0
Shutter Speed                   : 1/50
```

Attached are two files to check out, DSC00227 is electronic and DSC00228 is mechanical.

OS: Mac OS 14.0 Sonoma
ExifTool version: 12.67

I appreciate your help!

JosR

This is because Exiftool 12.67 does not yet properly support this model (nor the 7CR).
The Shuttercount information for these models is presumably at a different offset: Tag9050 offset 0x000a
Using:
Exiftool.exe -U -*9050b_0x000a [image.jpg]
both files you submitted have ShutterCount=29 (count is not increased for electronic shutter)
I suppose (hope) that DSC00229 will give 30 ...

I will submit this and some other changes to Phil, for incorporation into the next version of Exiftool.

(Note that the above just extracts a single byte, so if Shuttercount is above 255 it will not be correct anymore)

wintermute

Thanks, DSC00229 did indeed return 30

```
exiftool -U -"*9050b_0x000a" DSC00229.JPG
Sony Tag 9050b 0x000a          : 30
```

Phil Harvey

Thanks Jos.  I got your update and ExifTool 12.68 will decode this information.

- Phil
...where DIR is the name of a directory/folder containing the images.  On Mac/Linux/PowerShell, use single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") around arguments containing a dollar sign ($).