Micro 4/3 Rant about Shutter Counts

drd1135

Zen Snapshooter
Location
Virginia
Name
Steve
Rant on.

I was thinking about selling my Olympus EM1 II since I am mainly using the Fuji cameras right now. Today I was going to check the shutter count and take some pictures. Olympus has a cryptic but clear spelled out series of button pushes needed to get to the hidden menus and the shutter count. It’s also been the same cryptic series since the earliest PEN. So I try it today and nothing. I get to the intermediate page where it gives you the model of the camera but the last part that leads to the hidden menus just doesn’t do anything. The last sequence after the model page is Up, Down, Left, Right, Shutter, Up. I have been doing this all day. I reset the camera. The battery is fully charged. All the needed buttons work in their normal roles. I can do figure eights with the focus point using the arrow keys. I just can’t get the hidden menus appear with the elusive shutter count. It’s probably around 2500 or so but I can’t prove it. I also can’t put it up for sale since listing the shutter count is a sine qua non for sales of Olympus because you can in principle get to it. I just kinda stuck here.

By the way,the camera works fine. I tried it out because I hadn’t used it in a while and everything is great for picture taking. All I can think to do tomorrow is to update the FW to 3.1 from 3.0 because I’m out of ideas. Why Olympus can’t just list this in their already voluminous menus is beyond my simple wit.

Rant off.

Thanks for reading.
 
I find this very frustrating too. I'm not sufficiently dexterous to manage this arcane ritual. It is part of the 'technicians menu' apparently but why put their own tech people through this? :dash2:
 
Still works for me (E-M1 mk2 on firmware 3.0)
I followed these instructions:
... those seem to be the standard ones around.

Only difference to me is that shutter count on page 2 is not labelled 'R', but 'MS' (mechanical shutter, I'd guess)
 
Only thing I could think of is maybe make sure that you press the shutter button all the way down - when you do that final sequence...
I remember that tripped me up the very first times I tried it.
(The E-M1mk2 has that very 'cushioned' shutter button - a bit different to the previous Olympus cameras I had)
 
well, I would think you could still sell it on a camera forum where people know you. Obviously, you have a number of cameras, and your Olympus doesn't have 200,000 shots taken. There are a lot of tire kickers on the forums, too. They'll only buy it if it is 20% cheaper than comparable items and then only with a low shutter count. Price it farily, take some good, clear photos showing the condition and give an honest estimate of the number of shutter actuations and let the chips fall where they may.

Maybe you could even shoot a short video of yourself TRYING to find the shutter actuation part of the tech menu to assure buyers that you aren't able to it and aren't hiding anything.
 
I found the following recipe:

Hold "MENU" button on switch-on.
Press "MENU"
Go to Settings ("wrench") menu
Go to "Screen" settings
Press D-pad RIGHT (to brightness setting)
Press "INFO", "OK"
Press D-pad UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT
Press shutter button, then D-pad UP - you're have the infos available now.
Press D-pad RIGHT to reach page 2 - MS is mechanical shutter actuations count.

Found on YouTube - not my own achievement.

M.
 
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