D700 shutter count - extremely low!

kernowkid66

Senior Member
I have the chance to buy a D700 with a shutter count of only 896.

This seems extremely low - brand-new like, infact.

Should I be suspicious? can the shutter count be manipulated?

Many thanks.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
If you have the change to get your paws on it before forking over the bucks, bring a laptop with you and take a shot so you can verify the count with an exif reader.

Some people think file numbers are the same as shutter count. The former can easily be manually reset to 0, and in Nikon's case, resets to 0 once the file numbers reach 9,999.
 

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
If you have the change to get your paws on it before forking over the bucks, bring a laptop with you and take a shot so you can verify the count with an exif reader.

Some people think file numbers are the same as shutter count. The former can easily be manually reset to 0, and in Nikon's case, resets to 0 once the file numbers reach 9,999.
Good point Sparky. I can see how that mistake can be made if you don't know the difference or don't want someone else to know the difference.
 

MartinCornwall

Senior Member
Only nikon can zero the shutter count when servicing cameras, example on the shutter replacement on the D750 recall but they still don't zero it then as it reflects on wear and tear on the rest of the internal parts. Like suggested more likely a current photo count.
 

kernowkid66

Senior Member
Miraculously, the guy selling the camera is only a few miles away. So I popped over last night armed with said laptop and bingo!!! Here it is.................

D700 shutter count.jpg
 

gav329

Senior Member
Nice one well done fab camera!! My old D200 had a low shutter count when I bought it and it was too complicated for me so it had a low shutter count when I sold it on. I suppose every camera has a life story and not everyone who buys it takes lots of pics but you're right to verify it. Good luck.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Bob Blaylock

Senior Member
I recall seeing some discussion elsewhere on this forum, but don't remember details; about the possible issue of limits in the way the shutter-count number might be stored. I don't recall which cameras were under discussion, or whether there was any consensus about this limit.

To give an example of a possible issue, suppose that an older Nikon DSLR used an unsigned 16-bit integer in which to store the shutter count. This would impose an upper limit of 65535. On the 65536th click, it would roll over to zero and start over. That's within a number of clicks that could plausibly be on a camera that old.

If it used a 16-bit unsigned number to store the shutter count, and it really had 66,359 clicks on it, then it would claim to have only 823 clicks.

If it used a 24-bit signed integer, then that limit would be 16,777,215 clicks, which is probably well above any plausible number for a camera to have.
 

Bob Blaylock

Senior Member
Bob, that all seems a bit too technical for my brain to digest for the minute.Oz But thank you anyway. Very interesting.

Think of a car odometer. It used to be that most cars had odometers that only went up to 99,999 miles. When a car got to 100,000 miles, the odometer rolled back to zero and started over. It is not uncommon for a car to last well past 100,000 miles, so past that point, it used to be the case that the odometer no longer reflected the true mileage. My first car, a 1969 Falcon station wagon, lasted for about 220,000 miles. At some point, I stuck a “1” sticker next to the odometer to make it show the correct mileage, and on a trip where I knew it was going to roll over again, I brought along a “2” sticker, and me and my passengers were all watching for it to happen, whereupon we pulled over, and with great pomp and ceremony, I removed the “1 ”sticker” and put the “2” sticker in it's place.

Most modern cars now have odometers that got up to 999,999 miles, so they won't roll over unless a car reaches 1,000,000 miles, which very few ever do.

I'm assuming that a DSLR stores its shutter count as an unsigned binary integer; and how big a number it can store depends on how many bits it uses. When it passes that number, it will roll back to zero, just like an old car's odometer. I'm thinking it's possible that some older DSLRs might use only a 16-bit number, which would roll back to zero at 2[sup]16[/sup], which would be 65,536, a limit that many DSLRs might plausibly exceed. Thus, the D700 that you think only has 896 clicks on it might really have 65,536+896=66,432 clicks.
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
I had a short spell with D700 and it showed over 80,000 when i checked,many are for sale showing well over 100,000 so there is a good chance the count is correct.
 

kernowkid66

Senior Member
Thanks for the explanation, Bob.

I sort of knew what you where saying in your original post, but after a 12 hour night shift, nothing really sinks in!!!

I think even by going on the subtle things on my D700, like the condition of the high-wear areas, i,e buttons, finger grips etc etc - it really does look and feel virtually unused.
 

kernowkid66

Senior Member
Well, if it has been dropped, and I'm 100% sure it hasn't, it works perfectly, which is a testament to the sturdy design and reliability of the D700.
 
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