Shutter count for used bodies

[flameshots]

Is there a way to find the shutter count on used camera bodies. I'm especially interested in newer DSLR bodies and I have seen some on craigslist that claim to be new or really low shot counts. Obviously some of them sound too good to be true and probably are but I would really like to verify if I can.

Thanks for the help in advance.

 

[The_Traveler]

Absolutely.
Get the seller to take a picture of todays paper (any resolution) and send it to you.
Then use a free EXIF reader (like Opanda Exif) to extract the shutter counts.

 

[Overread]

Does that work for Canon? Far as I know the only way to get Canon shutter counts out of the camera is to send it to canon (note shutter count and number of photos taken often will not line up - esp if the user resets the frame count).

 

[KmH]

Most Nikon DSLR's do write the shutter count to the EXIF data. But, a JPEG has to be the original capture file, not RAW.

The shutter count is in the 'Maker Notes' section of the EXIF data:

 

[Drake]

Does that work for Canon? Far as I know the only way to get Canon shutter counts out of the camera is to send it to canon (note shutter count and number of photos taken often will not line up - esp if the user resets the frame count).

Sadly that's true for Canon, at least in the current and few years old models. The file numbering should be pretty accurate as long as you don't reset it. It doesn't count turning on LV or the cleaning mode though.