The Sony QX1 (ILCE-QX1) has no screen, no viewfinder and no menu system of its own — it is an E-mount camera operated from a phone. A camera like that cannot show you its own actuation total, so the ARW file is the only place the number lives. The browser tool on this site deciphers Sony’s encrypted MakerNote block and reads it there, locally, with no upload. Measured for this page on 11 November 2026 against a real QX1 ARW: 2,406 actuations, with the QX1-specific second counter in the same block returning the same figure to the digit. That is one file from one body — below is exactly what was measured, what it does and does not prove, and what the number is worth on a used QX1.
Check Shutter Count →Sony announced the ILCE-QX1 on 3 September 2014, alongside the DSC-QX30, as the top of its short-lived “lens-style” line. The earlier QX10 and QX100 were fixed-lens units; the QX1 was the one that mattered technically, because it put a 20.1 MP APS-C Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor and a real Sony E mount into a body with no screen at all. You clamp it to a phone — or put it anywhere the lens needs to be — and frame, focus and shoot from the phone over Wi-Fi, with NFC for pairing.
What it kept from a conventional camera is the part this page is about: a mechanical shutter running to 1/4000 s, which wears like any other. What it dropped is every interface through which a camera normally tells you about itself. There is a power button, a shutter release, a flash pop-up and a lens release, and that is the whole of the camera’s own user interface.
| Specification | Sony QX1 (ILCE-QX1) |
|---|---|
| Announced / on sale | 3 September 2014 · available from 15 November 2014 |
| Sensor | Exmor APS HD CMOS, 23.2 × 15.4 mm — 20.4 MP total, 20.1 MP effective · Bionz X |
| Mount | Sony E — the only QX-series model with interchangeable lenses |
| Screen / viewfinder | None — framing and control come from a paired phone or tablet |
| Shutter | Mechanical, 30 s – 1/4000 s · flash sync 1/160 s |
| Burst | Approx. 3.5 fps in Speed Priority Continuous · approx. 2.5 fps continuous |
| Autofocus | Contrast-detect, 25 points · manual focus with peaking |
| Sensitivity | ISO 100–16000 |
| Video | 1920 × 1080 30p, 16 Mbps, MP4 |
| Flash | Built-in pop-up, guide number 4.0 m at ISO 100 |
| Storage | microSD / microSDHC / microSDXC or Memory Stick Micro (M2) |
| Battery | NP-FW50 · approx. 440 shots (CIPA) |
| Size / weight | 74 × 70 × 53 mm · approx. 216 g with the NP-FW50 and a card, 158 g body only |
| Launch price | US$399.99 body · sold as the QX1L with the 16–50 mm PZ kit lens |
| RAW format | ARW 2.3, 12-bit — carries the shutter count, see below |
| Shutter durability | No figure published by Sony — the class norm quoted for bodies of this type is ~100,000 (est.) |
| Browser tool support | Shutter count read in the browser · measured on one real QX1 ARW (details below) |
Everything above except the last two rows is a published specification. The durability row is an estimate and is labelled as one, and the support row is a measurement on a single file rather than a corpus-wide result — both distinctions are kept in place for the rest of this page.
Sony has used three different hiding places across its digital bodies. The 2008–2011 A-mount, SLT and NEX cameras keep the counter in a plain but indexed MakerNote container, tag 0x0020. From about 2012 the number moved into MakerNote tag 0x9050, whose contents are enciphered with a simple substitution cipher — not encryption in any serious sense, but enough that a reader has to know the trick before any offset in it means anything. The QX1 belongs to that second group.
ExifTool splits the deciphered 0x9050 block into four layouts, Tag9050a to Tag9050d, and routes each body to one of them by model name. Its Tag9050a condition is written as an exclusion list — every body that is not a DSC- compact, a Stellar, a ZV-, or one of the named newer ILCE/ILCA/ILME models falls into it. The ILCE-QX1 is not on any exclusion list, so it is a Tag9050a body, in the same company as the A7, A7R, A7S, A5000, A5100 and A6000.
| Field in the deciphered block | Offset | What ExifTool says about it |
|---|---|---|
| ShutterCount | 0x0032 | Decoded for every Tag9050a body, with a source note that it “seems to be valid” for the A7R, A37, A57, A65, A77, A99/A99V and possibly the NEX-5N/7 — a list that does not name the QX1, and a warning that it is modulo 65,536 on some bodies |
| ShutterCount2 | 0x004c | Guarded by an explicit model condition that does name the ILCE-QX1 — together with the ILCE-7/7R/7S/7M2, 5000, 5100 and 6000 — and that additionally requires the flash not to have fired |
| SonyDateTime2 | 0x0051 | Same model list as ShutterCount2; a timestamp that is usually the capture time in UTC rather than local time |
Both counter fields are 32-bit values of which only the low 24 bits are the number: ExifTool masks them with 0x00FFFFFF, and so does the parser here. A reader that takes all four bytes at face value can print a seven-figure nonsense count, which is one of the ways wrong numbers get into listings.
The practical consequence of that table is worth stating plainly, because it is the reason this page does not simply say “Sony stores the count at 0x32, done”: the field the tool reports is the one ExifTool vouches for least on this particular body, and the field ExifTool names the QX1 in is a second one a few bytes further on. If those two ever disagreed on a QX1, the second one would be the one to trust. On the file measured below they do not disagree.
The QX1 is not in this site’s validation corpus: no QX1 file has been through the release-corpus CI run that confirms the bodies listed in the support matrix. Rather than reason from the code alone, a real QX1 ARW was fetched and put through the parser for this page.
ILCE-QX1 ARW from the public raw.pixls.us RAW sample repository (12-bit compressed, 3:2), 20,914,176 bytes, SHA-256 47908fe9…82957 matching the checksum the repository publishes for it. Shot 24 January 2021 at ISO 100, 16 mm, f/5.0, 1/80 s, with the E PZ 16–50 mm F3.5–5.6 OSS kit lens, flash off.
Run through the parser extracted from this site’s index.html on 11 November 2026, it returned:
Then the same deciphered block was read at the other documented positions, to see whether the number stands up on its own:
| What was read | Value | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
Deciphered 0x9050 block length | 944 bytes | The Tag9050a block size ExifTool documents for this generation — the QX1 writes the layout it is routed to |
ShutterCount 0x0032 | 2,406 | The value the browser tool reports |
ShutterCount2 0x004c | 2,406 | The field whose condition names the ILCE-QX1 — identical, on a frame where the flash did not fire |
SonyDateTime2 0x0051 | 2021:01:24 14:23:47 | Exactly one hour behind the EXIF capture time, i.e. the same moment in UTC — independent evidence that the block is aligned where the reader thinks it is |
Two separate counter fields in the block agreeing to the digit, next to a timestamp that decodes to the right moment, is a good deal more than a plausible-looking number at a guessed offset. It is why this page is comfortable saying the tool reads the QX1 — and why it still stops short of calling the body confirmed.
exiftool is not installed in the environment this page was prepared in, so the cross-check against its independent decoding is from its published source and tag tables, not from a run. And at 2,406 the sample says nothing about what happens past 65,535 frames, where ExifTool warns the 0x32 field wraps on some bodies. If you own a QX1, two straight-out-of-camera ARWs taken a known number of frames apart would close all three gaps at once — samples@shuttercount.app.
You do not need ExifTool — the browser tool reads the file — but on a body that is not yet in the validation corpus, a second reader is worth the five minutes. ExifTool is free, runs locally and changes nothing in the file.
On a QX1 frame both lines should carry the same figure — that is what happened on the file measured above. If only Shutter Count comes back, check whether the flash fired on that frame: ExifTool suppresses ShutterCount2 when it did, by design, because the field is not trustworthy on flash frames.
That second command lists every count-like tag ExifTool found with the group it came from, which is the honest way to see what is really in the file rather than what a tool chose to show you.
On most bodies this section lists a menu path. The QX1 has no menu to put one in. There is no screen, no viewfinder and no status panel; the phone app provides the shooting controls and nothing resembling a body-statistics page. Sony never documented a service screen for it either, and this page is not going to invent a button sequence for a camera whose only buttons are power, shutter, flash and lens release.
That leaves exactly two routes to the number: the metadata in a file the camera wrote, which is what this site reads, or a Sony service centre, which can interrogate the body directly — on an eleven-year-old discontinued product, for a fee that will exceed what the camera is worth. For practical purposes, on a QX1 the file is the count.
Sony published no shutter durability figure for the QX1, just as it published none for the A5000, A5100 or A6000 of the same period. The ~100,000 number attached to bodies of this class across the web is a class norm and an estimate — a statement about what entry-level mirrorless shutters of the mid-2010s were generally understood to manage, not a specification Sony can be held to. The table below is a yardstick against that estimate, nothing stronger.
| Actuation count | Share of the ~100,000 (est.) figure | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| 0 – 5,000 | 0 – 5 % | Typical for a QX1 — most were bought, tried and put in a drawer |
| 5,000 – 20,000 | 5 – 20 % | A camera that was genuinely used |
| 20,000 – 50,000 | 20 – 50 % | Heavy for this body — worth asking what it was doing |
| 50,000 + | 50 %+ | Unusual on a QX1; price it as a body with a working life behind it |
The QX1’s own history shifts where those bands sit. It was an experiment that did not catch on, sold for one season and was discontinued; the typical surviving body spent far more time in a cupboard than on a phone. A reading of a few thousand — the measured sample was at 2,406 after six years — is the normal case, and a high count is the exception that deserves a question rather than the other way round.
There is also a specific reason counts stay low on this camera: it is slow to get going. Pairing over Wi-Fi, waiting for the app, holding a phone and a lens together — nobody fires a QX1 in bursts at a school sports day. The 3.5 fps Speed Priority mode exists but is rarely the way this camera was used.
On an eleven-year-old QX1 the shutter is also not the part most likely to fail, and a buyer who fixates on the count is checking the wrong thing. What fails first, in rough order: NP-FW50 batteries of this vintage, which hold a fraction of their rated charge; the Wi-Fi pairing, which depends on an app and phone OS versions that have moved on considerably since 2014; the microSD and battery doors on a body this small; and the lens-release and mount, which on a camera designed to be clamped to a phone took stresses a conventional body never sees. Ask for a count, but ask for a working pairing first.
Dropping a QX1 ARW into shuttercount.app is worth doing when you are checking a listing, because everything reported comes from the file the camera wrote, and nothing is uploaded anywhere:
0x9050 block, as measured above.ILCE-QX1 and not from an A5100 or A6000, which share the sensor generation and the file format.0xA431 BodySerialNumber and no 0x9211 ImageNumber at all — both fields are simply absent from the file. So a QX1 sample cannot be tied to a specific camera by serial, the way a file from most later bodies can. For a remote purchase that makes the two-frame check above more important, not less: it is the one test that proves the number belongs to a camera that is actually firing now.
The absence of a serial is also worth knowing before you read too much into a blank field. It is not a sign of a tampered file — EXIF 2.3 added 0xA431 in 2010, and whether a camera fills it in was always up to the manufacturer.
The QX1 shares its layout inside the deciphered 0x9050 block with the first E-mount generation; later bodies moved to other layouts in the same block, which the tool also reads. These were confirmed against full-size release samples rather than inferred:
Yes. The parser deciphers Sony MakerNote 0x9050 and reads the count from the Tag9050a layout, masked to 24 bits as ExifTool does. Measured on 11 November 2026 against a real ILCE-QX1 ARW, it returned 2,406, labelled Sony 9050a[0x0032]. The QX1 is not yet in this site’s validation corpus, so that is a measurement on one body rather than a corpus-wide confirmation — stated here rather than glossed over.
ExifTool decodes ShutterCount at 0x32 for every Tag9050a body, and ShutterCount2 at 0x4c only for a named list that includes the ILCE-QX1 and excludes frames where the flash fired. The browser tool reports the first. On the measured QX1 file both held 2,406, so on this body the distinction made no difference — but if they ever disagree on a QX1, the 0x4c value is the one with the model-specific guarantee behind it.
No. The QX1 has no screen, no viewfinder and no menu system; the phone app controls shooting settings and shows no body statistics. Short of a service centre, the file is the only source.
Sony never published one for this body. The ~100,000 (est.) figure used on this page is a class norm for entry-level mirrorless cameras of the mid-2010s, labelled as an estimate for exactly that reason and kept out of the page’s search description.
Not from a serial number. The QX1 ARW measured for this page carries no EXIF 0xA431 BodySerialNumber and no EXIF 0x9211 ImageNumber at all; what it does carry is the model, the capture date and time, the exposure data and the lens model. For a remote purchase that means asking for two files taken a known number of frames apart and checking that the count moves by that amount, rather than relying on a serial the file does not contain.
No. DCF file numbering is a card-and-settings artefact that restarts when numbering is reset, and it is not an actuation total. The shutter count sits in the camera’s own MakerNote block inside each file and is unaffected by formatting a microSD card. On the QX1 the two are not even confusable in the metadata, because the measured file contains no EXIF ImageNumber field.
Untested on this body, so it is not claimed. Sony generally writes the same MakerNote into out-of-camera JPEGs, and the parser looks for it there too, but the only QX1 file measured for this page was an ARW. Ask a seller for the RAW; if a QX1 JPEG does return a count, that is worth knowing and worth sending to samples@shuttercount.app.
As a curiosity with a genuinely good APS-C sensor and an E mount, at the price these now change hands for, it can be. Go in knowing what you are taking on: an app-dependent camera from 2014, a battery format that is easy to replace but a pairing workflow that is not, and no way for the camera itself to tell you anything about its own history. The count in the file is the one piece of its history you can actually verify.
Announcement date, what the camera is and how it is operated, sensor, ISO range, shutter-speed range, burst rates, storage and battery life: the Sony ILCE-QX1 article and Sony’s own ILCE-QX1 / DSC-QX30 help guide specifications (sensor type and dimensions, 20.4 MP total / 20.1 MP effective, 216 g with the NP-FW50 and a Memory Stick Micro card, 158 g body only — it lists no shutter type, which is why none is claimed beyond “mechanical” here), and the Imaging Resource specification sheet, which also gives the sensor dimensions, the 25-point contrast-detect AF, 1080/30p MP4 video, microSD / MS Micro storage, the NP-FW50 pack and 440-shot CIPA rating, the 74 × 70 × 53 mm body, 216 g weight, the built-in flash guide number and 1/160 s sync, the US$399.99 price, the 15 November 2014 availability date and the absence of any screen or viewfinder. Location, structure and validity conditions of the counter fields — the substitution cipher on MakerNote 0x9050, the Tag9050a routing condition that leaves the ILCE-QX1 in that table, ShutterCount at 0x0032 with its “seems to be valid” note and modulo-65,536 warning, ShutterCount2 at 0x004c whose condition names the ILCE-QX1 and excludes flash frames, SonyDateTime2 at 0x0051, and the 0x00FFFFFF mask on both counters: ExifTool’s Sony module, Sony.pm, and the published Sony tag names. The measurement: a public CC0 ILCE-QX1 ARW from the raw.pixls.us RAW sample repository (SHA-256 verified against the checksum published there), read on 11 November 2026 with the parser extracted from this site’s index.html; exiftool was not installed in that environment, so its side of the comparison comes from its source and tag tables rather than from a run, and the page says so where it matters. No manufacturer shutter-durability figure exists for the QX1, which is why the ~100,000 figure is identified here as an estimate and kept out of the meta description.