Using gphoto2 the commandline tool allows me to read the shutter count of the weathercam. gphoto2 can be easily installed on linux based systems as well as on macOS using brew.

On macOS you have to install brew first to then install gphoto2 using

brew install gphoto2

Connect your Canon EOS 1000D using your mini-USB cable and power it on.

Open Terminal and type

gphoto2 --get-config /main/status/shuttercounter

It will then show you the current shutter count.

Label: Shutter Counter
Type: TEXT
Current: 89768

The EOS 1000D has a declared shutter life of 100 000. But only few of them really reach this number. Most of them are starting to fail for other reasons

Some stats about my 3 Canon EOS 1000D that has been used so far for the weathercamPi:

#1: about 110000 shutter releases
#2: about 80000 shutter releases
#3: exactly 89768 shutter releases (currently in use)
#4: 1689 shutter releases (the “new one” that will replace #3 as soon it’s starting to fail)

Last week I’ve launched a website called Horrorskop.at

Technically it’s nothing special just a simple Wordpress Page including a randomizer for its content.

The interesting thing is, they are horoscopes, but they are anything but encouraging and joyful. Therefore it’s named horrorscope.

90% of the content was generatedwith chatGPT and the cover image with Stable Diffusion. TThis applies to both the negative predictions and the haikus.

Have fun! Or not…

Since I have announced that I will continue to operate the weather camera actively, instead of simply waiting for the hardware to fail, an update is due in the next few days. I have to thank a supporter supporting me to buy some replacement hardware.

If the installed EOS 1000D stops working, I now have a replacement that can be used within a very short time. In addition, a donated RaspberryPi3 is ready as a replacement too.

So, there is some work to be done for the upcoming weekend:

• Removal of the case and cleaning
• Backup of the settings and the operating system of the installed RaspberryPI (basically a 1:1 copy of the memory card), as well as replacement of the memory card (the 32GB microSDXC card is working there for over 6 years, wow!)
• another insulation mat to keep the hardware in a reasonable temperature window on cold and hot days.

The camera will therefore be temporarily unavailable from March 3 to 5.

Hi