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  #1  
Old 22nd October 2021, 03:48 PM
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Martin Aislabie Martin Aislabie is offline
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Default Shutter Speed Optical Tester

Firstcall are selling an optical shutter speed tester - https://www.firstcall-photographic.c...-tester/p13052

It plugs in to your mobile and when used in conjunction with the Shutter-Speed app, allows you to measure your cameras shutter speeds.

I haven't used one yet but I'm hoping Santa might bring me one.

Personally, I can see this sort of thing being of most interest to owners of older equipment to test their focal plane shutters and for lenses with leaf shutters incorporated.

Martin
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Old 22nd October 2021, 05:29 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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There are numerous shutter speed testers on eBay UK, starting at £13.02 , which seem to do what the pricier version above does, which is basically a plug-in microphone and a bit of software.

I have bought one myself, based on good reviews, but I've just not got round to using it yet.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_n...57.m4084.l1313

Terry S
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Old 23rd October 2021, 06:30 AM
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Uwe Pilz Uwe Pilz is offline
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I have such a thing from a different source, price was around 25 Euro a few years ago. It works excellent.
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Old 23rd October 2021, 08:06 AM
TonyMiller TonyMiller is offline
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As long as your phone still has a headphone jack.
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Old 23rd October 2021, 08:25 AM
John King John King is offline
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A good gadget, but I don't wish to put a dampener on the idea, but it may register how accurate it is however I am doubtful if it will be as effective where you have 'shutter bounce' or uneven coverage of the film/sensor and they are probably more important than outright accuracy.
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Old 23rd October 2021, 04:52 PM
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I bough the one that plugs into an iPhone and works with the Shutter Speed app. I couldn’t get it to work, and frankly found it to be a waste of money. It requires you to interpret a wave-form produced on the phone screen. You have to find two peaks. I consistently had peaks all over the place. I would suggest trying to see one demonstrated before spending the money. I think mine was 25 Euros.
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Old 24th October 2021, 06:30 PM
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They usually use a light sensor that plugs into the mic socket (assuming your phone has one these days!). A microphone will not work at much faster than 1/30th and are much more difficult to interpret the pulse. You need to make sure the light source is not triggering the sensor except when the shutter opens - it's a bit of a balancing act without a light-tight box where you can adjust the light intensity. Might be worth knocking something up using a cardboard box (or a hi-tech version using a 3d-printer).

I've no idea how good they are. I made a simple DIY version in the past using a reverse connected LED as a sensor and using my oscilloscope to capture the pulse.

I would expect that an amount of interpretation will be required at faster shutter speeds as the shutter is opening and closing for longer than it is fully open and the audio input will have a low-pass filter at around 8 to 20 kHz potentially resulting in slowing of the rapid rise and fall of the pulse (my 'scope did not suffer that issue as it has a 500MHz bandwidth )

Last edited by Bob; 24th October 2021 at 06:34 PM.
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Old 25th October 2021, 11:45 AM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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I'm beginning to see why I didn't progress with the one that I bought. It's all beginning to sound rather complicated and my brain is starting to hurt!...

If I can find it, I'll read the instructions again and see it makes any more sense this time and maybe have a go. But don't hold your breathes!

Terry S
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Old 25th October 2021, 12:09 PM
alexmuir alexmuir is online now
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I’m going to look for mine too, Terry to see if a long stay in a drawer has made it work any better. It would certainly be useful to have one hat was effective and easy to use.
Alex


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  #10  
Old 26th October 2021, 04:05 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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A bit late to the discussion here, but wanted to add my experience.

I have one that uses an optical sensor that plugs into an iPhone and uses a dedicated shutter speed app. I found it easy to use and very straightforward to interpret the results. I first used the app without the optical sensor, relying on the built-in mic in the phone, but it was pretty much useless -- as Alex said, peaks all over the place. But with the optical sensor it worked great. There would be just one single dominant peak (with a few smaller peaks which would be disregarded); the length of the dominant peak corresponded to the shutter open time; one simply lined up two cursors - one at the beginning of the peak, the second at the end - and bingo, shutter speed measured. I used it only on leaf shutters. In fact, the developer stated that it really didn't work well for travelling curtain shutters (can't recall why).

Also, it had to be used in the dark with an flashlight beamed into the lens rear opening (inserted into the film chamber), otherwise room light would mess up the reading.

Bottom line: it was well worth the expense, and I used it on several leaf shutter cameras to check speed consistency and ID which speeds were off. The app has a database to store readings for multiple cameras - very useful.

Hope this helps...
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Last edited by Svend; 26th October 2021 at 04:35 PM.
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