@TCampbell wrote:
Dire Studio documents that their shutter count utility gives the count of "still" photos taken by the camera but does not include video (which makes sense).
It does not use image EXIF data nor does it uses file numbering, etc. It is accurate and only counts upward (if someone resets a camera the count is not reset to zero.)
I'm not sure what Canon uses in their own count.
Mostly what photographers care about is the number of times the shutter had to open & close mechanically and in video mode it really opens once to expose the sensor and recording of video frames doesn't cause any mechanical movement of the shutter (the camera uses an electronic shutter in that mode instead of the mechanical focal plane shutter.)
I don't recall Canon documenting the method to retreive shutter count in the Canon EOS SDK (I checked it once upon a time and didn't see it.). But it is normal for products to have undocumented API's and it also explains why these utilities don't necessary work on every camera (because internal API's can change from product to product and without notice.)
It does surprise me just a little that Canon doesn't have a menu feature or feature in EOS Utility to display the count without needing to send the camera in.
I don't know if Canon keeps track of shutter actuations which would start over when a new shutter is installed, total actuations on the body, or both.
