DIY Shutter Speed Tester

wickerman

wickerman

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Feeling a tad bored yesterday I stumbled across a thread on another site with a circuit diagram showing how to make your own shutter speed tester.

I popped over to Maplins and after about an hour or so of tinkering I now have my own shutter speed tester.

The circuit diagram and principle behind it can be found here : http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/004/0044cW-10288684.pdf

Having built it I was a little concerned as to how accurate it might be so I used my Bronica to test it, as it has an electronic shutter. I haven't yet collated the results but my initial testing show it to be pretty accurate (assuing the Bronica is accurate).

Here are a couple of pictures showing the finished article and the set-up used to test my Bronica.



Shutter Speed Tester 003 by wickerman6, on Flickr


Shutter Speed Tester 001 by wickerman6, on Flickr


Shutter Speed Tester 002 by wickerman6, on Flickr

It works with leaf shutter lenses, there are circuit diagrams for diy shutter testers for focal plane shutters, that might be my next project. :)
 
Interesting, thanks for the plans, I've saved the pdf and i'll have a go when i have the time and materials :thumbs:
 
Cool, I had thought about investigating this in the past but this can be my next project.

Presumably you connect this to the computer and use some software to measure time between the peaks?
 
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steveo_mcg said:
Presumably you connect this to the computer and use some software to measure time between the peaks?
Click to expand...

That's right, you plug it in to the soundcard in your computer. You then record the waveform using a suitable program. I use audacity as it's free. Link here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
 
I made one of those too. if you do a pair of diodes 25mm apart and use a stereo jack plug you can measure the speed of both curtains rather than just the time.
 
If you aren't electronically included or can't be arsed then this ebay seller in Romania makes shutter speed testers starting from £22.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/vfmoto/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686
I got one a year ago and it works a treat with a small powerful torch like an LED Lenser P3 for £10 on amazon.

It's amazing how bad some shutters age. Most of the leaf shutter cameras i have from the 1950's are about a stop slow on all speeds, sometimes worse. The worst though was a Zorki 3M where the 1/1000th speed actually fires at 1/175th and the 1/500th and 1/250th speeds below that.
 
I remember when the photography magazines used to do proper tests on all SLR cameras including shutter speeds.That way buyers could see which cameras had accurate shutter speeds.Now you have to just hope what you buy is accurate.I have my doubts about some:shrug:
 
Electronic focal plane shutters are very accurate so it's less of an issue than with purely mechanical ones or leaf shutters. I have a Nikon FE (electronic shutter) and i tested all the speeds on that and they were perfect even after 30 years, so i imagine newer stuff to be just as good.
 
wickerman, do you have a list of parts you used? when i search on maplins site using the info from the linked pdf, i dont get any results :x
 
pingu666 said:
wickerman, do you have a list of parts you used? when i search on maplins site using the info from the linked pdf, i dont get any results :x
Click to expand...

I don't have a note of the ones that I used but I think it was these:

SFH300-2 Phototransistor NP64U
Min Res 39k M39k
Monores Cap 4700pF RA42V

I hope this helps.
 
yep those work :D, thankyou :)
do you really need that pcb board thing?, the components are nice and cheap atleast :)
 
pingu666 said:
yep those work :D, thankyou :)
do you really need that pcb board thing?, the components are nice and cheap atleast :)
Click to expand...
You don't need the pcb board, I just happened to have some at home that I could use.
 
wickerman said:
It works with leaf shutter lenses, there are circuit diagrams for diy shutter testers for focal plane shutters
Click to expand...

Should be the same. You just need either a point source of light or place the sensor right next to the shutter so you are only measuring a small part of the frame area.


Steve.
 
wickerman said:
Agreed. What I should have said is that there are circuit diagrams available to test curtain speed for focal plane shutters. There is one here: http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/combinationtester.html
Click to expand...

I build this one - with the slight difference (used the fast raising photo transistor from Maplin to test speed more accurately). Used it to tune both curtains speed on a few Kiev-60s that I had tuned (mine has sensors spaced far enough for 6x6 MF frame). Total cost was about 10 quid from Maplin.

One difficulty I had when testing fast shutter speeds like 1/1000s was a reading the Audacity diagrams. The sound output on speeds faster than 1/250s stops producing two distinct spikes (the raise and fall of the current is not fast enough) so careful analysis of the single spike is needed.
 
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