Canon PowerShot S120 Shutter Count:
Why No File Will Give You One

Canon PowerShot S120 — what it is

Canon announced the PowerShot S120 on 22 August 2013, alongside the G16, S200, SX510 HS and SX170 IS, and put it on sale that October at an estimated retail price of $449.99. It succeeded the S110 and was the last of the enthusiast S-series: a genuinely pocketable compact with full manual control, a lens-barrel control ring, RAW capture and an F1.8 wide end, in a body of about 217 g. Canon never replaced it directly. The budget S200 announced beside it was a stablemate rather than a successor, and the pocket-enthusiast brief passed to the 1-inch G9 X in 2015.

Why no tool can read an S120 count

ShutterCount works by finding a counter the camera itself wrote into the file. Nikon puts it in MakerNote tag 0x00A7, Sony in the encrypted 0x9050 block, Fujifilm in 0x1438, Pentax and Ricoh in the XOR-scrambled 0x005D. Canon does write one — but only on specific bodies, and the S120 is not among them.

On Canon the field lives in a CameraInfo or FileInfo MakerNote blob whose layout changes from model to model, so the offset has to be confirmed body by body. In CR2 files that blob carries a usable count only on the professional 1D and 1Ds line; Canon does not write it for consumer bodies at all — not for the 5D, 7D, 80D or Rebel DSLRs, and not for the PowerShot compacts. On those cameras the actuation counter is a hardware register inside the body, readable over USB from an EOS camera and never copied into an image. The single Canon compact with a confirmed offset in this tool’s support matrix is the PowerShot G5 X Mark II, at 0x0A95 in CR3 and 0x0293 in JPEG — and the S120, a 2013 camera, predates the CR3 container entirely.

So an S120 file opens and parses without trouble; it simply has no actuation field in it. What comes back is the ordinary EXIF: camera model, firmware version, capture date and time, ISO, aperture, shutter speed, focal length, and the serial number Canon writes into the MakerNote. This is not a gap a future release of the parser might close. exiftool decodes Canon’s MakerNote in considerably more detail than this tool does and reports no shutter count for a PowerShot either, because the camera never recorded one.

Dropping an S120 file into the tool is still worth doing when you are checking a listing: the firmware version, the serial number and the capture dates are real, verifiable facts about the camera that produced that file, and on a body old enough to have changed hands several times they are often enough to catch a misdescribed camera. The actuation total will not be among them.

The four routes people suggest — and what each is worth

Search for this question and you will be offered the same handful of answers. Three of them do not apply to this camera.

1. A hidden service screen in playback — undocumented here

Older Canon compacts respond to a button sequence — hold SET and press DISP in playback mode, repeatedly, to step through firmware service screens until a line reading Total Shoot: appears. The reports that describe it are about the DIGIC 4-era G-series, principally the G10, G11 and G12. No verified owner report shows it working on the S120, Canon documents no shutter-count readout in the camera’s specification or manual, and the firmware generation is two processor generations newer. Treat it as a G-series trick, not an S120 one; trying it costs nothing, but a page that promises it will work here is guessing.

2. CHDK — no port exists for this body

CHDK, the Canon Hack Development Kit, is third-party firmware that boots from the SD card and exposes values the stock firmware hides. It is the right answer for a great many PowerShots. It is not available for this one: the CHDK project’s own wiki page for the S120 states that CHDK is not available for the camera. A firmware dump for version 1.00E sits in the project’s repository, but it never became a working build. CHDK’s DIGIC 6 porting effort began years after the S120 shipped and reached several of its contemporaries — the G16, SX60 HS, G7 X and G5 X among them — while this body was left behind. Every model and almost every firmware revision needs its own port, so a build for a sibling camera cannot be used here. CHDK is an active project and coverage changes, so check its wiki before concluding; as of this review there is no S120 port.

3. EOSInfo or gPhoto2 over USB — EOS only

These tools ask the camera for its internal counter over Canon’s PTP protocol, and they are the standard answer for EOS DSLRs whose CR2 files carry no count — a 5D Mark III or a 70D will give up its true actuation total that way. The S120 will not. It is not an EOS body, it does not implement the EOS property those tools query, and neither project lists it as supported. There is no USB route to an S120 actuation count outside Canon’s own service tooling.

4. Canon service — the one authoritative figure

A Canon service centre can read the camera’s internal counters during an inspection or repair. On a camera of this age that is rarely worth paying for on its own, but if the seller has any service paperwork from a past repair, it is the only genuinely authoritative usage figure that exists for the body — worth asking about, and worth more than any number a website offers you.

On a pocket compact, the shutter is not what wears first

Most pages on this site are about a focal-plane shutter: two blade curtains behind a lens mount, a defined wear item with a manufacturer figure to measure against and a known replacement price. The S120 has nothing of the sort. Its shutter is a small unit inside a sealed, fixed lens assembly, and three things follow from that.

The retracting barrel does more mechanical work than the shutter does. The S120’s lens extends from a 29 mm-deep body on every power-on and retracts on every power-off, in an unsealed camera that lives in a pocket or a bag. That mechanism, not the shutter, is the classic failure point of the whole S-series. The family history is explicit about it: Canon issued a service notice in 2012 for the S100 — two models before this one — after a part inside the lens could come loose and produce a lens error, affecting cameras whose serial numbers began 29 through 41, with free repair that ran until 30 September 2017. That notice is about the S100, not the S120, and it should not be read across to this camera as a defect. What it should tell you is which part of an S-series body to test hardest.

A frame total would not equal an actuation total anyway. All video recording reads the sensor electronically and moves nothing mechanical. Canon’s specification does not break down which shutter mechanism each still mode uses, so even a reliable frame count — which you cannot get here — could not be converted into a mechanical actuation figure for this body.

Nothing about the count is user-visible. With no readable counter in the file, no documented menu item and no CHDK port, there is no number to argue over — which makes the hands-on checks below the entire basis for judging a used S120.

Shutter life: no figure from Canon

Canon has published no durability rating for the PowerShot S120, and this page does not invent one. The 100,000-, 150,000- and 200,000-actuation figures that circulate for Canon bodies are EOS ratings — they describe focal-plane shutter units in interchangeable-lens cameras, tested and published for those products. Carrying one across to a shutter built inside a fixed compact lens would be a guess dressed up as a specification.

Where this site quotes ~100,000 actuations (est.) for compacts of this class, that is a class norm offered for orientation and labelled as an estimate. It is not a Canon figure for this camera, which is why it stays out of this page’s meta description and out of the specification table above. In practice, on a camera that went on sale in October 2013, age is the more useful variable: battery health, screen condition and barrel wear tell you far more about a thirteen-year-old S120 than any actuation estimate would.

What you can actually check on a used S120

1. Read the dates, firmware and serial from sample files. Ask the seller for two or three unedited out-of-camera files, ideally from different folders. Capture timestamps show when the camera was actually used — a body with nothing newer than 2016 in it has been in a drawer, which is its own kind of risk — and the serial number lets you check the listing photos against the file.
2. Treat the file numbering as a floor, not a total. The DCIM folder and file index on original files tell you the camera has taken at least that many frames since the last reset. Numbering can be restarted and cards get formatted, so it never proves a total — but a body already several folders deep has a different history from one still in its first.
3. Power-cycle it a dozen times and watch the barrel. This is the check that matters most on an S-series body. The lens should extend and retract smoothly and identically every time, with no grinding, no hesitation at the end stops and no error message. Do it more times than feels polite; intermittent faults are the ones sellers do not mention.
4. Run the zoom through its full range under load. Go from 24 mm to 120 mm equivalent and back repeatedly, including while the camera is writing a burst to the card, and listen for a motor that hunts or stalls.
5. Fire the shutter across its whole range and listen. Take single frames at 1 s, 1/60 s and 1/2,500 s, then run a burst. The sound should be identical shot to shot, and exposure should be even across the burst; hesitation at slow speeds or a frame that comes out darker than its neighbours is the failure to listen for.
6. Check for dust in the lens and on the sensor. A retracting barrel on an unsealed body is the classic route for dust. Photograph a bright, even surface at F8.0 and inspect the frame at 100 %, then look into the front element at an angle under a light.
7. Exercise the touchscreen and the control ring. Swipe through the menus, tap to focus across the whole frame, and turn the lens ring through several full rotations in each direction, checking it registers every click. With no viewfinder, a dead zone on the screen is a dead zone in the camera.
8. Test the battery and the Wi-Fi. NB-6LH cells this old are frequently tired; CIPA-rated 230 shots when new means considerably fewer now. Pair the camera with a phone once, to confirm the wireless hardware works, since it is the feature the S120 was sold on.

None of this produces a number, and on this camera nothing will. What it produces is a judgement about condition — which on a sealed pocket compact is the more useful thing anyway.

Compacts where the count does come out of the file

If verifying usage from a single file before buying matters to you, it is worth knowing which pocketable cameras allow it. The tool runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded — and returns a count for Nikon NEF, Sony ARW, Fujifilm RAF, Pentax and Ricoh PEF/DNG, and the Canon bodies with a validated offset. Among the compacts an S120 buyer is likely to be cross-shopping, Sony’s RX100 line is the closest rival, and the RX100 VII is confirmed in this tool’s support matrix through the encrypted Sony tag 0x9050 — as is the fixed-lens RX1R III. The Ricoh GR III, GR IIIx and GR IV write a release counter into the Pentax-format MakerNote tag the same parser decodes, while the GR II and older Ricoh compacts store none. Fujifilm’s X100V writes an ImageCount into its RAF files. On the Canon side, the one compact with a confirmed offset is the PowerShot G5 X Mark II. Every other PowerShot, this one included, is on the other side of that line.

Canon PowerShot S120 Shutter Count — FAQ

Can I check the S120 shutter count from a CR2 file?

No. Canon writes a ShutterCount field into EXIF only for its professional 1D and 1Ds bodies; on every consumer body, PowerShot compacts included, the counter stays in the camera’s hardware and is never copied into the image. An S120 CR2 or JPEG reads normally — model, firmware, dates, exposure data, serial number — but holds no actuation total for this tool, for exiftool, or for anything else.

What is the rated shutter life of the S120?

Canon has not published one. The 100,000 to 200,000 figures quoted around Canon cameras are EOS ratings for focal-plane shutters in interchangeable-lens bodies and do not apply to a shutter inside a fixed compact lens. The ~100,000 (est.) this site uses for compacts of the class is an estimate for orientation, not a Canon specification.

Does CHDK work on the PowerShot S120?

No. The CHDK project’s own wiki page for the S120 says CHDK is not available for it. A 1.00E firmware dump exists in the project’s repository but never became a port, and CHDK’s later DIGIC 6 work reached contemporaries such as the G16, SX60 HS, G7 X and G5 X rather than this body. Check the CHDK wiki yourself before relying on it — coverage can change.

Will EOSInfo or gPhoto2 read it over USB?

No. Those tools query an EOS body over Canon’s PTP protocol, which is why they work on EOS DSLRs whose CR2 files carry no count. The S120 is not an EOS body and does not implement that property. Outside Canon’s service tooling there is no USB route to its counter.

Is the S120 the same camera as the S200?

No, although Canon announced both on 22 August 2013. The S200 is the cheaper model: 10.1 MP CCD, DIGIC 5, an F2.0–F5.9 lens and 720p video. The S120 has a 12.1 MP CMOS sensor, DIGIC 6, an F1.8–F5.7 lens and 1080/60p. The EXIF model string on a sample file settles which body produced it.

Why does Canon not store the count when Nikon and Sony do?

It is a long-standing design decision rather than a technical limit — Canon tracks the value internally and exposes it in EXIF only on the 1D and 1Ds professional line, leaving USB as the route for EOS bodies and nothing at all for compacts. Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm and Pentax/Ricoh write it into the file on most of their range, which is why those cameras can be verified from a single sample file and a PowerShot cannot.

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