K10D Actuations

I want to put my K10D, with an expensive sensor cleaning kit and a spare

battery, up for auction to raise dough towards a K20D. I have scarcely used the

K10D since I bought it last june -I'm mostly a Leica B&W film shooter and wasn't

happy about the B&W implementation of the K10D- but I think my chances of a

successful auction would be improved if I could could state with certainty the

number of actuations the K10D has had. How do I find out?

ExifTool, which is a perl script, can tell you this from the command

line:

 

exiftool -pentax:FrameNumber test.pef

 

Pentax tag names ExifTool understands:

<http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/Pentax.html>

 

ExifTool: <http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/>

If you're a leica shooter and don't like the K10D, why are you scrounging up for a K20D and

not an M8?

Photo ME is a free download that also tells how many actuations your camera has.

Renato: thanks but those links don't work. Steve, also thanks but unfortunately I use a Mac and there is no Mac version of PhotoMe. And Trent, no thanks, Carl Weese's report in The Online Photographer makes it clear that all my problems with the K10D have now been fixed in the K20D for a street price of only $1100,so why would I want a cheap piece of junk like the M8?:)

I found Exif Tool and it looks like a great tagging tool, but has no way of counting deleted images, which most of mine were. Back to square one: how can I look inside the K10D and see how many times the shutter has been used?

Both links are right, but those <> broke them. Try agan with this:

 

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

 

MAC OS package link:

 

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/ExifTool-7.25.dmg

> how can I look inside ...

 

Looking at the FrameNumber tag of last image. Just shoot an image and look into exif for this tag with the command:

 

exiftool -pentax:FrameNumber imagefilename

Ienato, i'm a computer illiterate -how does one "look into exif"? And where should i put the image before trying to do this?

Renato, apologies for putting a typo in your name!

Take a RAW picture in Pentax.PEF Raw.<br>

Transfer the file to your computer desktop.<br>

Note the file name.<br>

Launch PhotoMe (I don't have ExifTool).<br>

Click [File] [Open] [Desktop] and your file name noted above.<br>

Click on the "Manufacturer Notes" Brick on the top menu bar.<br>

Scroll down to the fourth section of rows (separated by black horizontal lines).<br>

The first entry is Shutter Count. It is immediately after SR Focal Length.<br>

 

I don't use ExifTool.

Windows user, can't help you how to use the tool on a Mac, sorry :(

 

No worries, this is how my daughter call me when she was baby :)

Turns out iPhoto has been keeping count. 414 images, total! no wonder this camera looks new, it nearly is.

The number of images does not equal the number of shutter actuations.

 

Firstly, it has been empirically determined that all K10D's come from the factory with a couple of hundred actuations on them. This apparently done as part of quality control.

 

Secondly, if you ever used the digital preview function, that counts as a shutter actuation, but does not create an image.

 

I'm not sure, but I think that the sensor cleaning function may count as an actuation, as well.

 

Secondly, iPhoto can only count the number of images that you transfer to your computer. It has no way of knowing how many were deleted in the camera and never uploaded to the computer.

 

The exif data is the only way to tell for sure.

 

What is wrong with the B & W processing in the K10D, and how has it improved in the K20D? I've only used it a couple of times, so I have no real experience with it. Plus, in all the discussions of the K20D, I've never heard anyone mention the B & W process. Mostly it consists of complaints about how they didn't change the AF mechanism.

 

Paul Noble

Since i never delete in camera, have never previewed or needed to clean the sensor i can at least say "less than a thousand"actuations. K20D has a special B&W mode, K10D only a filter applied after capture. And according to Carl Weese's TOP article AF is much improved, with less hunting in low light and much better ability to focus on narrow objects instead of the background.

If you take a jpeg and link the full size image here (without modifying it in Photoshop first), I can check in photoME for you.

Thanks for the hook up on PhotoME. I've been trying find a program that was easy to use and also told me the number of shots taken. My used K10D only has about 3100 shots taken. Don't know if that's a little bit or a lot, but it works just dandy for me.

Cory, thanks for the kind offer - i'm on deadline but as soon as i can i'll find a host, put a shot up an email you the link.

Cory, it's a beautiful day here in NE Oregon and anybody I know who might host an image for me is out paragliding, skiing or running a river. Would it be OK for me to email you the image? if so, let me know at: dmkeditor@comcast.net