Nikon Film Camera Meta Data

I recently broke down and bought the Meta35 set-up to retrieve shooting data from certain SLRs. For those unfamiliar, the N90(s), F5, F100, and F6 have internal memory that records the exposure data for every frame shot. With the right hardware and software(originally Nikon Photo Secretary and the MC-33 or 34 cable) you could then retrieve this and correlate it with your images.

Since the original hardware is hard to find(I've looked) and requires legacy computers, a product called Meta35 gives you the same functionality via a USB dongle. It also adds some other features like batch-adding the metadata to film scans.

All of that aside, I'm wondering-for those who may know-just how exactly the cameras number the rolls recorded. I think the internal memory on an F5 can hold 100 rolls. When I pulled the data, it imported 42-40 of those rolls are not mine. I'm wondering if that's a lifetime count on the camera, or if there's a systematic way that the camera deletes old data when it fills.

Of course, one CAN clear the memory when the data is downloaded. It's the default option in Meta35, and I understand that the MV-1 does the same. Still, considering the amount of force required to remove the cap on my F5, and its overall appearance, I'm wondering if it truly has only shot 42 rolls of film.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter as the camera works fine for me, but I'm wondering if anyone else has any experience with this and can point me to exactly how it works.

Thanks.

I am not sure how to clear the data without the software from the F5. So if it requires the software than may be your F5 has less than 42 rolls.

I have the F5 and the Photo Secretary software and the MC-33. I actually use it to delete the data rather than using the data. I use the software for remote functions and custom settings. I had the F5 P and S modes disabled for a long time but since I don't use it often any more I reenabled it because I am afraid that I may lose the software or not able to run the software in the future. I found that I can't reset it without the software to restore P and S modes.