ShutterCount 6.2 Released with Canon EOS R7 and iPad Stage Manager Support

The latest update to my ShutterCount app is now available on the App Store. It adds the long-awaited Canon EOS R7 support as the headline feature.

This release also improves multitasking (split view and slide over) compatibility on iPad, and works with Stage Manager on iPadOS 16.

There are other small changes for Apple’s new operating systems, like following the system-wide rename of Preferences to Settings on macOS 13 and re-enabling the retrieval of the actual device name during network pairing on iOS/iPadOS 16.

So it is highly recommended to update the app if you are using these new operating systems.

The update is free for existing users, and is available on the respective App Store.

Improved Wi-Fi Pairing in ShutterCount and Kuuvik Capture

The recently released Kuuvik Capture 6 and ShutterCount 6 brings a very convenient feature for those who use both apps on the same Mac or iOS device with Wi-Fi connection to a Canon camera.

Previously only the Mac’s/iPhone’s/iPad’s name was programmed into the camera’s menu by default, and in case you used multiple wireless tethering apps with the same camera, you had to manually edit the names to be able to distinguish between the apps.

Now we prefix the device’s name with an app identifier. Kuuvik Capture is referred to as “KC”, ShutterCount as “SC” and ShutterCount Pro as “SCP”.

App and device names as programmed into the camera’s menu by our apps.

These names are generated and programmed into the camera’s menu during the pairing process, but as always, you can change them in the camera afterwards.

Kuuvik Capture 6 and ShutterCount 6 are available for your Mac and mobile device in the respective App Store. These updates are free for existing ShutterCount (all versions) and Kuuvik Capture (5.0 or later) customers.

Canon EOS R3 is Supported in ShutterCount and Kuuvik Capture

I’ve been silent on this site for the last ten months. Suing Apple, developing exciting new features (that were released but I haven’t posted about), stealing a few hours for my knife hobby, and actually making some great images were what I spent most of my time on. Now I’m back, with some cool news to share.

Canon CPS was finally able to deliver our rental R3 (pretty much first in the country), so we did add support for the camera both in ShutterCount and Kuuvik Capture.

I haven’t purchased one for myself as I didn’t see any compelling reason to do so. This feeling was reinforced during the rental as I tried the camera for actual bird photography. I’m not going to replace my trusty 1D-X Mark III (or any DSLR for that matter) with the R3. But that is another story…

The camera’s firmware has a lot in common with the R5, R6 and 1D-X Mark III – including bugs and dumb solutions. So in Kuuvik Capture we had to apply the usual set of workarounds to shield you from the crap. For example our depth-of-field preview handling technique (disabling it when you move around in magnified live view, but restoring it automatically when you move to a marker) also applies here.

Note that you will have to upgrade your R3’s firmware to 1.1.1 or later to be able to use it with the app.

ShutterCount‘s support for the camera had also been elevated from basic to complete. The mechanical-only counter is now the default to be in sync with what you see in the camera’s menu, but the app also shows the electronic counter on the Distribution Chart. All extra features – like shutter life prediction, outdated firmware warning and the Network Connection Cheat Sheet in the Wizard – are available for the R3 as well.

Kuuvik Capture 5.9 and ShutterCount 5.1 are available for your Mac and mobile device in the respective App Store. These updates are free for existing customers.

ShutterCount 4.8 Released

The latest update to my ShutterCount app is now available on the App Store for Mac, iPhone and iPad. This update brings a few under-the-hood changes.

The computer technology world is loud with privacy-related issues these days, and we highly value Apple’s efforts at the conceptual level. Unfortunately, their implementation is a hot mess, being a constant source of headache for me in the last couple of years.

Case in point: iOS 14 requests the user’s permission to allow an app to access the local network, which for example ShutterCount requires for Wi-Fi and Ethernet camera pairing and connections. For several users, this is just one more annoying popup, and choose “Don’t Allow” just to be safe. And then they try to pair a network camera, which will fail. In better case they contact our support, but leaving a bad review tends to be the norm.

Wouldn’t it be nice to ask iOS about the state of this permission before pairing so that we can inform the user that he/she denied access? Absolutely, but iOS doesn’t provide that functionality for developers… Half-baked mess…

Fortunately we were able to develop a clever workaround and the app warns users about the missing permission right on the spot.

Well, people who ignore every and all error messages will still be a problem, but that’s a topic for another day.

The next change is that ShutterCount on iOS 14 no longer needs full Photos access to read a Nikon or Pentax shutter counter from a photo.

Just choose the image from your photo library, and that’s all. On the flip side, if that image happens to be in iCloud, we can’t show you a download progress indicator, because Apple forgot to provide download progress information. Half-baked mess again…

Now something we’re very proud of:

We are in the business of making and selling software to you, and not selling your private life to some sneaky data brokers. This is one reason why the prices of our apps are what they are.

Lastly, we’ve updated error messages on the Mac to cover the situation where the connection can’t be made because of a corrupted memory card.

The update is free for existing users. New users can download ShutterCount from the respective App Store.