What should the starting image # be when placing a cf card in a brand new camera and formatting before shooting? The camera in queston is a 5D. Image numbering was set to continuous. The first frame I shot has an image # of 3225. The folder # was 100. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Try the following to ascertain shutter actuations. Both Mac and Windows programs are available.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9971
or
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/25275

Download the program, then open an UNEDITED jpeg that was shot with the camera. Scroll down until you find the line:
Unknown tag (0x0093) 28 0 295 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 etc.

The third set of numbers is your actuation number. In this case 295.

Regards,
Chuck Pefley

Thanks Chuck, I'll give that a try.

Best regards,
Tracy Mewmaw

I'm pretty sure that this number isn't shutter actuations. At least in the case of the 30D, flickr.com uses that 0x0093 tag as "Shutter count", and it's somewhere in the 50,000s (which didn't sound completely unreasonable). But after checking some files from the week I first got the camera, I see the same number in some files, and in others a number in the 40,000s. So ... I don't think it is what people would like it to be (it's certainly not unique among my photos, which sort of discredits any chance that it could reliably have anything to do with the shutter actuations). But perhaps the 5D is special? :)

-/\/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/norby/

Couldn't read any of my files (RAW). I guess you gotta shoot a few JPEGs to find out.

It's certainly not the shutter count for the 5D, I tried it and it doesn't change between frames neither have I shot 100,000 frames on my camera. Anyone else have and idea?