Charging a Canon EOS R6 Battery via USB

I recently bought a Canon EOS R6 mirrorless camera and Canon RF 24-240mm F4-6.3 IS USM lens. For a family vacation, I made sure to purchase an extra LP-E6NH battery pack. However, I forgot to bring my battery charger. DOH! Fortunately I discovered that you can use a USB power adapter to charge a battery using the EOS R6 camera body. The instructions are provided here.

The digital terminal on the R6 body contains a USB-C port, and I initially tried to charge the battery using a USB-C cable with an Apple 5W wall adapter. However, the green indicator would not turn on (i.e., charging had not begun). I then tried an Apple 87W USB-C power adapter with the same USB-C cable, and charging began. It appears that there is a minimum power requirement, but the Canon EOS R6 manual does not seem to state what it is. If you know of another reliable source of this information, or if you have personal experience with various power supplies, please leave a comment below.

Since I needed to go to sleep and did not want to leave the charging cable plugged in overnight, I unplugged the USB-C charging cable after about 2 hours and 45 minutes, despite the continued presence of the green indicator light. The battery capacity was listed at 93%. Therefore, I estimate that about 3 hours is needed to charge a battery from 0% to 100% with my configuration.

On the Recovery of a Phone

My daughter recently lost her phone at Six Flags Magic Mountain. We submitted a Lost and Found Report, and we were informed the next day that the phone had been found. We were given the option to have the phone shipped to us via FedEx for about $33 or to have it held for pickup within the next 30 days. We went to Magic Mountain again today and retrieved the phone from Guest Relations. To no surprise, the screen was cracked.

We had estimated that the phone was lost at around 4:15 PM, and according to the FindMy app, its last broadcasted location was 4:36 PM that same day. Therefore, I was hopeful that the phone would still be in working order and that we could simply replace the screen. However, after connecting a charging cable to the phone and attempting to power it on, it only provided a faint diffuse white glow instead of the familiar Apple logo, and it would not boot. Furthermore, after a couple more minutes of charging, the phone became hot, so we figured the phone was likely beyond recovery if not dangerous to operate.

As a side note, my daughter had stuffed a couple of miscellaneous items into her phone case, as well as a $20 bill. Everything remained in the phone case, minus the $20 bill. I reported the loss of the money to a manager at Guest Relations. I suggested some possible ways to increase accountability and reduce the likelihood of theft, and she kindly listened to my suggestions.

I guess my daughter will receive another Christmas present this year.

On the Loss of a Phone

I took my daughter to Six Flags Magic Mountain today. We’ve had season passes for many years, and today was the last day that we were planning to visit for 2023. On the Twisted Colossus Ride (which includes a couple of sections where riders are upside down), her phone slipped out of her back pocket and was nowhere to be found. We were directed to Guest Relations where we were told to file a Lost & Found Report:

As described in the instructions, we were told that it is important to provide the IMEI number. I know how to retrieve the IMEI number from the settings on an iPhone, but since the phone was lost, we don’t have it. We were told to retrieve it from our carrier.

Our carrier is Visible, a low-cost plan by Verizon. Part of what enables Visible to be low-cost is that there is no option to speak to a live customer support representative—instead, all inquiries must be done via chat. To chat with a representative, you must login to your account. Well, I had not logged in to the account in quite some time, and after entering the username and password, Visible insisted that I turn on 2-factor authentication and gave me only 1 option to enable it: by sending a text message to the phone which we did not have in our possession.

As a workaround, I decided to try the Messages app on my daughter’s Mac, where she can normally send and receive text messages. I found, however, that while I was able to send and receive iMessages to her account via WiFi (which show up in blue), we could not receive the SMS text messages (which show up in green) from Visible without her phone so were unable to turn on 2-factor authentication. And therefore it seemed too difficult at the moment to contact Visible to retrieve the IMEI number.

I noticed in the Lost & Found Report form, there was a “How to find an IMEI number” tooltip which provided many options to try if you have the phone. These were nice to know but useless to me in this situation:

• Dial *#06# on device
• Navigate to Settings > General > About
• Look on the back of the device
• Look on the back of the SIM card tray

It also said that if you’ve lost the device, check the IMEI number on the product packaging. Unfortunately we bought the phone used, and Visible did not provide us with the original product packaging.

Finally, it provided an option to visit appleid.apple.com > Devices. When I logged in with my daughter’s Apple ID, my heart sank when the 2-factor authentication message said that it needed to send a text message to her phone WHICH WE DID NOT HAVE IN OUR POSSESSION. I clicked OK anyway, and thank goodness that all Apple devices that are logged in with the Apple ID are prompted to allow or disallow the login. So from her Mac, we clicked “Allow” which provided us with the 6-digit number for 2-factor authentication. From the Devices section, we were able to see the serial number and IMEI number of the phone.

Finally we were able to submit the Lost & Found Report to Magic Mountain. We received a confirmation of receipt of the report, and now we wait and see if they find it. While at Guest Relations, we were told that there is a 50% success rate for finding lost items. Fingers crossed. The moral of the story is:

DO NOT LOSE YOUR PHONE

Social Media Friend Requests

If you spend time on social media accounts, you’ve probably received friend requests from people you don’t know. In my experience, there is a good chance that many of those friend requests are not from your real friends. For example, the screenshot above shows only a partial list of my most recent friend requests. I don’t know any of those “people” and have only 1 mutual friend with one of them. My guess is that they are all AI-generated profiles from people who are trying to build up their networks and then sell them to people who will then use those profiles for advertising, information gathering, or other purposes.

This website talks about more reasons the kinds of people who might want to send fake friend requests: scammers, malicious linkers, catfishers, exes, significant others, or even private investigators. It also describes ways that you can identify fake friend requests: common connections, “attractive” photo, limited history, friend composition, and timeline content. The friend requests in the screenshot all happen to be Asian females, and they all seem to be airbrushed or AI-generated which to me were dead giveaways, and the lack of common connections further reinforces their lack of authenticity.

Professional networking sites like LinkedIn are also inundated with fake profiles as discussed here. While I don’t accept friend requests on social media accounts, my policy on LinkedIn had been to accept known connections as well as people in my industry who might be good professional connections to have. I’ve personally accepted at least 1 fake profile which I detected because that person posted a somewhat strange comment on a thread which sounded to me like it was AI-generated. I then realized that their profile made no sense, and furthermore I noticed that the work experience and education changed from day to day. LinkedIn and other networking sites have mechanisms to allow you to report fake accounts, so consider using them.

Fake accounts are a growing problem, and I hope this helps raise awareness and prevents you from falling victim to this practice.

Lee Family 2023 Year In Review

I asked ChatGPT to introduce our annual newsletter and extend holiday greetings. This was its response, with only a single edit where I inserted the hyperlink.

“As we gather around the warmth of the holiday season, it is with great joy and gratitude that we present our annual Lee Family 2023 Year in Review newsletter. This past year has been a tapestry woven with moments of laughter, growth, and love. From milestones and adventures to everyday triumphs, we are excited to share the chapters that have defined our lives in 2023. As we reflect on the memories we've created together, we are reminded of the importance of cherished moments spent with loved ones. Wishing you all a holiday season filled with warmth, togetherness, and the magic of creating memories that will last a lifetime.”

Prior editions of our newsletters are hosted on Dropbox. Depending on the device you are using, you might be prompted by Dropbox to sign in, download the mobile app, or continue to the website—you can simply select the option to continue or dismiss the dialog box.

Our home movies are available on Victor’s YouTube channel.

Digital Camera Shutter Counts

I recently upgraded my digital camera from a Canon EOS Rebel T4i to a refurbished Canon EOS R6. Despite the camera looking brand new (i.e., no visible signs of wear and tear on the exterior), naturally I wanted to see if I could retrieve its shutter count. The shutter count (a.k.a. shutter actuation number) is the number of times a camera’s mechanical shutter has been fired and is an indicator of wear and tear, similar to the mileage on a used car. But unlike a used car where you can simply look at the odometer to see the mileage, getting the shutter count from a camera can be tricky.

From what I’ve read in multiple discussion forums, and based on my own experience, there does not exist a universally compatible method of obtaining shutter count for all camera makes and models. If you’re trying to obtain a shutter count on your digital camera, you might need to tinker with different approaches until you find one that works.

Approach 1: Get Shutter Count From Camera Body

The first approach is to try a dedicated software application that can fetch the shutter count from your camera body. This is typically done by connecting the camera body to your computer via a USB cable. Software applications may differ on Windows and Mac operating systems, but I found that Mac freeware application FreeShutterCounter v1.2.2 was able to retrieve the shutter count on my T4i which was listed as a supported camera.

 

Unfortunately it was unable to retrieve the shutter count on my R6. That was not surprising because the R6 was not listed as a supported camera.

There is also a ShutterCount app which is available for purchase (currently $8.99) on the Mac App Store. Instead of providing an exact shutter count for the R6, it provides a shutter count of “≤ 1000” and addresses this in its FAQ as follows:

“New Canon cameras (all mirrorless models as well as DSLRs released in the recent years) provide the shutter counter value in 1000 increments. This is how 1D-series models always displayed the counter in the menu. Obviously Canon is on the opinion that this is pretty much enough for practical purposes. So ShutterCount follows what Canon dictates, and displays the counter identical to how 1D-series models and the R3 does it: in "less than or equal to" notation, and in 1000 increments.”

Approach 2: Get Shutter Count From Image EXIF Metadata

The second approach is to try to retrieve the exchangeable image file format (EXIF) metadata from an image file. EXIF data typically store things like the image date/time, camera body, camera lens, image filename, shutter speed, aperture, and other camera settings that were used to take the image. It may or may not include the shutter count. If it does contain the shutter count, the metadata field may be called “shutter count” or “image number” or other variations depending on the make and model of your camera.

I used ExifTool which a free command line executable and a collection of libraries. It does not come with a graphical user interface, so if you’re not accustomed to entering commands in a terminal application, you may struggle to use it. In any case, I retrieved EXIF metadata from images in both of my cameras, and it appears that shutter count is not stored in images in my older T4i, but it does exist in the images for my newer R6.

(blah blah blah)
Specular White Level            : 14888
Linearity Upper Margin          : 12735
Shutter Count                   : 16
Vignetting Corr Version         : 96
Rating                          : 0
(yada yada yada)

This was the data read from IMG_0009.CR3, the 9th photo I had ever taken from my refurbished R6, so I assume that the shutter count was 7 upon arrival.

Coincidentally I later found a Mac app called ExifTool Reader which is available for free on the Mac App Store. It appears that this is simply a macOS application that uses the ExifTool libraries. I tried unsuccessfully to obtain the shutter count on my R6, and while troubleshooting, I discovered that ExifTool Reader (the app) is currently using version 12.59 of the ExifTool libraries (updated 4/2/2023), whereas ExifTool (the command line executable and libraries) is currently on version 12.70 (updated 11/19/2023). I assume that somewhere between version 12.59 and 12.70, the libraries began to recognize the shutter count in my R6 EXIF metadata.

A variation of this approach is to upload an image file to a shutter count website. There are many such websites, and you should pay attention to any fine print regarding what they may do with the images that you upload. Consider taking a dummy photo and submitting that. I tried a few of these websites, and all of them informed me that my uploaded image from my R6 does not store shutter count information, despite me having successfully retrieved the shutter count using ExifTool. One of the websites cleverly offered a “helpful” link to a software application that claimed to be able to retrieve my camera’s shutter count. I am purposefully not adding links to any of these websites because I am unable to verify authenticity and was not able to get any of them to work.

I wonder if certain websites are unable to retrieve shutter count from the EXIF data due to evolving specifications. EXIF 1.0 was published in October 1995, EXIF 2.0 was published in November 1997, and EXIF 3.0 was published in May 2023. It is possible that firmware updates may result in differences in how EXIF data are written into image files, thus making it difficult for websites and app developers to stay current.

In summary, if you are not aware of a verified method of obtaining the shutter count from your camera, you may need to experiment until you find one that works. And if you own a Canon EOS R6, hopefully an EXIF reader will get you straight to the answer.