# Nikon Shutter Count



## Andrew1 (May 6, 2016)

Does anyone know of a way to expose the "Shutter Count" value present in Nikon EXIF data such that LR6 Rename Files function or John Beardsworth's "SearchReplace" plugin can get hold of it?

This needs to work _*without *_editing the original image files (otherwise I could obviously just use exiftool to move it around).


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## johnbeardy (May 6, 2016)

It'll need to be via Exiftool or something other than Lightroom that reads the info directly from the file.


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## Andrew1 (May 6, 2016)

Thanks for the speedy reply.
Does the fact that I've got Rob Cole's ExifMeta installed open any avenues? That appears to be able to read Nikon_ShutterCount, and get it into the catalogue, but I see no way of exposing it to the rename functions (yours or otherwise).


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## clee01l (May 6, 2016)

The image file EXIF block has a large unstructured field called Manufacturer's Notes.  Each Manufacturer can structure the field with sub fields to their own specification.  Tools like EXIFTool will parse this field, but Adobe chooses to import the field as one large EXIF field. They do this because each manufacturer structures the field differently and with differently named sub fields. Adobe retains the information and includes it on Export but does not parse it.


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## Linwood Ferguson (May 8, 2016)

What are you trying to accomplish?   I see the rename file mentioned, if your goal is to rename the file, it is possible to use other tools to do so before it is taken into lightroom (Photo Mechanic for example should be able to do it for example).   If it is just to display, and it has already been made visible, you might look at Jeffrey Friedl's tools; I do not think he has any that decode it, but if it's already decoded and in the catalog somewhere, some of his tools for both the metadata planel and data exploration show pretty much everything.


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## Andrew1 (May 8, 2016)

The intention is to rename the images already inside Ligthroom, to match a future pre-import renaming scheme.
(Shuttercount looked like a convenient and, above all, compact solution to uniqueness).
It took me a while to work out what my Nikon was doing with its filenames, when changing SD cards, etc. and I've got a lot of identically named files in my early imports and any scheme adopted now has to "appear" to apply retrospectively.
I'll probably give in and just use a sequence number for pre-existing files, even if it does upset my obsessiveness....


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## Linwood Ferguson (May 8, 2016)

Andrew1 said:


> The intention is to rename the images already inside Ligthroom, to match a future pre-import renaming scheme.
> (Shuttercount looked like a convenient and, above all, compact solution to uniqueness).
> It took me a while to work out what my Nikon was doing with its filenames, when changing SD cards, etc. and I've got a lot of identically named files in my early imports and any scheme adopted now has to "appear" to apply retrospectively.
> I'll probably give in and just use a sequence number for pre-existing files, even if it does upset my obsessiveness....



I struggled with that also, without complete success.  What I did was use the rename on import and appended the "Image #" to the file name.  That's an increasing number LR keeps track of.  That doesn't address prior images of course.

Just as an aside, for go-forward, actuation number is not good if you ever have a second body, or change bodies.

What may work is select all photos, in capture date order, and do a rename with sequence number appended starting at 1, then when done set the last one (or plus one) to the current image number and use image number for future imports.  That should give you an increasing number sequence over all the photos, so long as you don't reset the image number (say during a computer move or similar).

Be aware if you have a backup program that does incremental backups that a mass rename is going to probably back everything up again, in addition, as new files.  Very few will "notice" a rename.


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## PhilBurton (May 8, 2016)

Ferguson said:


> What may work is select all photos, in capture date order, and do a rename with sequence number appended starting at 1, then when done set the last one (or plus one) to the current image number and use image number for future imports.  That should give you an increasing number sequence over all the photos, so long as you don't reset the image number (say during a computer move or similar).



Just be sure to select a sequence number with 5 or more digits, so you don't run into a "rollover" problem.

Another way to deal with this issue, that could work with multiple bodies, is date-based naming, down to the second or sub-second.

Phil


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