Camera Inspector

Read Canon EOS camera data over USB — shutter count, battery level, serial number, lens, firmware, and editable user metadata. No cloud, no subscriptions, runs entirely on your Mac.

What It Does

Connect your Canon EOS camera via USB and instantly see:

• Shutter Count with wear percentage against the camera's rated lifespan
• Battery Level with 4-segment visual indicator
• Serial Number, firmware version, attached lens, system date/time
• Owner / Artist / Copyright fields — read and write directly to camera
• Copy Report — one click to copy all camera info to clipboard

Supported Cameras

Works with any Canon EOS camera supported by libgphoto2. Shutter lifespan data included for: 5D Mark II/III/IV, 6D, 6D Mark II, 7D, 7D Mark II, 60D, 70D, 80D. Other Canon models show all data except wear percentage.

Quick Start

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/CashQ/camerainspector.git
cd camerainspector

# Install dependencies
brew install gphoto2 libgphoto2
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Run (sudo required for USB access)
sudo .venv/bin/python -u server.py

Connect your camera, and it opens automatically in your browser.

How It Works

Browser  ◄── localhost ──►  Python Server  ◄── USB/PTP ──►  Canon Camera
                            (Flask + gphoto2)

Why sudo? macOS runs a daemon called ptpcamerad that auto-claims all USB cameras. The server needs root to kill it and talk to the camera directly. This is safe — the daemon restarts automatically when you unplug the camera.

API

Endpoint	Method	Description
/api/status	GET	Connection check
/api/camera	GET	All camera data
/api/camera/overview	GET	Model, serial, firmware, battery
/api/camera/shutter	GET	Shutter count and wear
/api/camera/user	GET	Owner, artist, copyright
/api/camera/user	POST	Write owner, artist, copyright

Project Structure

server.py          — Flask + gphoto2 backend
camera_db.py       — Camera model → rated lifespan lookup
requirements.txt   — Python dependencies (flask, gphoto2)
static/
  index.html       — Single-page UI
  css/style.css    — Styling
  js/app.js        — Frontend logic
tests/
  test_camera_db.py
  test_server.py

Privacy

Everything runs locally. No data leaves your machine. No analytics, no tracking, no internet required.

License

MIT