hidden menu on Panasonic G1/GH1 (shutter count)

[F1L1P]

confirmed it works on G1. firmware 1.42

Should you want to, you can find out the number of times
you have switched on your G1/GH1
and the number of times you have pressed the shutter -
by doing the following.

(N.B. Its complicated but it does work )

1. Switch off camera
2. Switch to Single Shot Mode
3. Press "Film Mode" and "Display" together, hold these
4. Switch on camera, release the buttons after a short while.
5. Press "Menu/Set" and "left arrow" together, hold them, ignore the display
6. In addition(!) press 2 times "Film Mode"
Now you should see the history of problems with date and a code, up to 16 items.
7. Press "Menu/Set" and "left arrow" together once again and hold them
8. another additional press on "Film Mode" and you see a screen with 3 counters:
No.:
PWRCNT: counts the "switch on's"
SHTCNT: counts use of the shutter

Do No's. 7 and 8 again and it will bring you back to normal operation.

(by soundimageplus)

what is STBCNT? stabilization count?
P.S.if you push "display" where PWRCNT is displayed, you get "Camera info.2" menu

 

[Brian Mosley]

Fantastic find! thanks for sharing...

Will check my G1 later.

Cheers

Brian

 

[Roni G]

Thanks for the tip. Worked for me. The version displayed was 1.41.

 

[F1L1P]

It is interesting why some of us have 1.41 and some 1.42

 

[gravox]

F+12 digit number ?

It worked for me also. The screen on my G1 gave Ver 1.42, then
F 960810150048. Does anyone know what this represents ? It appears not to be the serial number.

 

[hohoho]

This thread crippled my camera. (Or maybe not.)

Hi all. Now that the price of the G1 is plummeting here in Japan -- and the version with a tele zoom that I'd probably never want to use is only 700 yen (that's 5.5 euros) more than the one with just one zoom lens -- I bought one. Well actually I bought it about four days ago but I've been too busy to do more than upgrade its firmware till today, when I took a couple of dozen pictures and wondered about such things as why it shows big green rectangles when it has focused rather than the single little red rectangle that the model in the shop was displaying.

One thing that amazed me was my discovery that there's no language-switching option. I can read Japanese but I can read English much faster. Googling around tells me that this is a widely known misfeature of the Japanese-market G1. If I'd known before buying that only Japanese was available, I'd still have bought the thing; but it's irritating.

So I was delighted to discover this thread. I guessed that it might let me in to a world of hidden menus, whereupon I could activate language selection.

I tried it twice. The first time, it worked exactly as described in the message at the top. It gave me information in which I was not interested (sorry!). However, I hadn't really taken in the bit at the end: P.S.if you push "display" where PWRCNT is displayed, you get "Camera info.2" menu. That sounded good, so I tried the whole procedure a second time.

I don't know what I did, but having done it:

1. In taking-photos mode the eyepiece monitor shows a handsome B/W display with magenta information while the LCD on the back looks like a B/W TV display circa 1952.

2. Viewing (replaying) my handful of color photographs in the eyepiece, I see a bizarre two-color (blue and red, no green) posterization effect; viewing them from the LCD on the back looks like the display of a near-dead twenty-year-old color TV.

3. Viewing (replaying) my post-hidden-menu-searching B/W (?) photos in the eyepiece, they seem OK B/W photos; viewing them via the LCD on the back and they're B/W TV display circa 1952 with a few colored rectangles thrown in.

Well, my little toy is most definitely under warranty, and I'm in perhaps the world's most convenient city for taking Japanese toys back to their makers. But before I waste a couple of hours (as Tokyo is big) on that, any tips?

 

[Brian Mosley]

Thank you for the very timely reminder, hohoho... that when you go into these undocumented, unauthorised maintenance menus - you must be very aware of which menu options you are taking, so that you have at least a chance of going back.

In addition, the Japanese language probably made your menus even more cryptic... and difficult for us to guess which option you took.

I'll have a look at my G1 later today - hopefully will be able to suggest something then.

Please let us know if you solve it in the meantime.

Cheers

Brian

 

[F1L1P]

So I was delighted to discover this thread. I guessed that it might let me in to a world of hidden menus, whereupon I could activate language selection.

well it is not hidden menu, because you can't choose or change anything there, it's more something like hidden information display

But before I waste a couple of hours (as Tokyo is big) on that, any tips?

have you tried:

Do No's. 7 and 8 again and it will bring you back to normal operation.?

 

[hohoho]

Thank you, chaps!

well it is not hidden menu, because you can't choose or change anything there, it's more something like hidden information display

Well you most certainly can change something thereabouts, because I most certainly did just that!

I can still read my camera's menu system. I took the option within it to reset the camera to the factory settings (or something like that). This led to a question asking me if I wanted to reset my custom settings (ditto). I said yes to that too.

No change! The camera is still, um, doing its crappy-1950s-television thing.

I'll take it in to Panasonic some time in the next three days. Hope I get somebody who's not a jobsworth; if I do, I can say "Look, I know that these cameras are all the same really. I bought it here in Japan because here is where I live, but I can read English faster than Japanese through no fault of my own. I've no intention of selling it to anyone. So just go into the next room where you know I'm not watching you, and press the magic button sequence and convert it for multilingual use, OK?"

 

[hohoho]

Today I took the camera in to Panasonic's main Tokyo service station. The woman I spoke to seemed not to be alarmed to hear that I'd been attempting to outwit the crippleware setting.

"The camera's very new so you won't have to pay," she said, writing up the details on her little form. "But you will have to wait about a week."

"Fine, fine. But the reason why I was playing around was to get the menu system to display in English. So could you add my request to have it switched into English, or rather to multilingual mode?"

She wrote that down too.

"And I know that this would cost money, but could I have a printed manual in English? Reading the PDF on screen is a pain, and so is reading this one in Japanese."

She wrote that down as well.

Fingers crossed.

(I hope nobody there takes offense at the red "Nikon F5" strap, which I attached as a private joke. I don't have a Nikon F5, but if I did I'd never dream of attaching this strap to it -- though I'd happily use a "Lumix" strap with it.)

 

[hohoho]

Though I expand on the matter of language in another thread, perhaps I should complete the hardware story here.

I got the camera back today. All very polite, and I didn't have to pay anything, but I was told that the multilingual option wasn't available (hmf!) and that the camera had been fitted with a replacement main circuit board and TFT screen.

I presume that Panasonic was telling the truth. All I can see is that the camera works, that its firmware is back down to where it was before I (legitimately! conventionally!) upgraded it, and that the transparent seal I'd stuck over the screen isn't there any more.

This camera had taken a total of two dozen pictures and had been handled minimally and treated gently in a dry atmosphere. Of course there's always a chance that it was that one lemon in a couple of hundred thousand and that it coincidentally chose to go wrong just as I was doing exotic keypress combinations. I find it very hard to believe that the firmware would be designed to let any keypress combination, no matter how bizarre, damage the hardware. (Think of the stories of computer malware apparently intended to do damage: it's hard to come up with credible stories of "viruses" and the like destroying motherboards, video cards or monitors.)

Still, there's always the possibility that yes, I inadvertently damaged my camera. So if you want to follow the recipe at the top, do so with care. (And, um, no offense to F1l1p, but do realize that even if you do everything right you'll only be presented with two statistics.)

 

[otmarc]

I've got firmware 1.20 (yup, I still want to use my non-genuine battery ) and I can confirm, that this counter trick also works on this firmware.

 

[jesse]

Thanks for sharing

 

[patrick359]

For those who have tried this - did the shutter count agree with your picture numbering (assuming you didn't reset the numbering)?

 

[F1L1P]

For those who have tried this - did the shutter count agree with your picture numbering (assuming you didn't reset the numbering)?

I believe it restarts with firmware upgrade, so no way to test it really. Mine shows 6953 and I have G1 from mid September 2009.

 

[photoSmart42]

I've got firmware 1.20 (yup, I still want to use my non-genuine battery ) and I can confirm, that this counter trick also works on this firmware.

Someone recently suggested these batteries, and supposedly they work with the new Pana firmware. Worth a shot, and allows you to upgrade your firmware.

http://www.bestbatt.com/Panasonic_DMW_BLB13_Battery_p/bbblb13.htm

I'm about to order one to confirm that they actually work as well.

 

[neokao]

confirmed it works on G1. firmware 1.42

Should you want to, you can find out the number of times
you have switched on your G1/GH1
and the number of times you have pressed the shutter -
by doing the following.

(N.B. Its complicated but it does work )

1. Switch off camera
2. Switch to Single Shot Mode
3. Press "Film Mode" and "Display" together, hold these
4. Switch on camera, release the buttons after a short while.
5. Press "Menu/Set" and "left arrow" together, hold them, ignore the display
6. In addition(!) press 2 times "Film Mode"
Now you should see the history of problems with date and a code, up to 16 items.
7. Press "Menu/Set" and "left arrow" together once again and hold them
8. another additional press on "Film Mode" and you see a screen with 3 counters:
No.:
PWRCNT: counts the "switch on's"
SHTCNT: counts use of the shutter

Do No's. 7 and 8 again and it will bring you back to normal operation.

(by soundimageplus)

Help! I was able to follow the instruction and checked the SHTCNT on my G1. However, now as the camera powers off, I am seeing the yellow triangle with the "!" instead of the regular Lumix graphic. I could not find a way to re-initialize the camera. It seems stuck in permanent service mode.

 

[youry]

Help! I was able to follow the instruction and checked the SHTCNT on my G1. However, now as the camera powers off, I am seeing the yellow triangle with the "!" instead of the regular Lumix graphic. I could not find a way to re-initialize the camera. It seems stuck in permanent service mode.

reset to factory settings and remove the bat for a while! it might work.
as for the guys paying $19 for a bat, go on Ebay and the same knockoffs sell two for $17.

 

[F1L1P]

Help! I was able to follow the instruction and checked the SHTCNT on my G1. However, now as the camera powers off, I am seeing the yellow triangle with the "!" instead of the regular Lumix graphic. I could not find a way to re-initialize the camera. It seems stuck in permanent service mode.

Do No's. 7 and 8 again and it will bring you back to normal operation.

have you tried that?

 

[smiclalef427]

Help! I was able to follow the instruction and checked the SHTCNT on my G1. However, now as the camera powers off, I am seeing the yellow triangle with the "!" instead of the regular Lumix graphic. I could not find a way to re-initialize the camera. It seems stuck in permanent service mode.

I've got the exact same problem. I've tried #7 and 8.

I can't figure out how to reset to the factory settings though. How does one accomplish this?