The Ten Dollar Shutter

FishyFish

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I saw this post on Kosmofoto toay and thought it was interesting.

kosmofoto.com

‘Ten-Dollar Shutter’: a new mechanical shutter for film camera projects

By Oleg Khalyavin In the beginning was film, and the film was with photography, and the film was photography. This was before the coming of digital photography. Digital pictures appeared and film d…
kosmofoto.com kosmofoto.com

I believe one of the main problems the people behind the Reflex SLR Kickstarter project had was the ability to source a shutter for their design. I wonder if things like this might help make new film cameras a possibility?

View: https://youtu.be/Qwlma2mvvEY
 
I was chatting to Stephen (Kosmo) about this the other night, especially as I’ve spent way too much time over the last 2.5 years developing a new LF shutter!

As far as I understand, the “ten dollar shutter” currently relies on the innards of a standard SLR, just with a manual spacing control to adjust the shutter speed.

The idea is great, but it relies on an existing camera to be gutted, so isn’t really a ten dollar shutter. I wish it was though
 
stevelmx5 said:
I was chatting to Stephen (Kosmo) about this the other night, especially as I’ve spent way too much time over the last 2.5 years developing a new LF shutter!

As far as I understand, the “ten dollar shutter” currently relies on the innards of a standard SLR, just with a manual spacing control to adjust the shutter speed.

The idea is great, but it relies on an existing camera to be gutted, so isn’t really a ten dollar shutter. I wish it was though
Click to expand...

That’s a bit disappointing then. It gave the impression that the whole mechanism was new, although that might have been a misunderstanding on my part.
 
FishyFish said:
That’s a bit disappointing then. It gave the impression that the whole mechanism was new, although that might have been a misunderstanding on my part.
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I thought the same at first, but then realised it's (very well made) beta.
 
Asha said:
Which I keep hoping is going to be released...
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... with a cable. Best way to release a shutter.

Seriously, I'm also interested. I have a couple of lenses that use an Ilex 5 shutter, and only 1 Ilex 5 shutter to share between them.
 
StephenM said:
... with a cable. Best way to release a shutter.

Seriously, I'm also interested. I have a couple of lenses that use an Ilex 5 shutter, and only 1 Ilex 5 shutter to share between them.
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Iirc @Woodsy also showed an interest so already @stevelmx5 , you have a ´market’ :p
 
Just wondering what the advantage is of an LF shutter? Is it just for using old lenses without shutters?
 
1. You can pick up barrel lenses (lenses without shutters) for a low price. These are not just confined to older, "classic" lenses, either. G Clarons and Apo Ronars were originally made as process lenses, sans shutter. Many have been shuttered later. Typically, the same lens with/without shutter can vary in price by £100-£200.

2. Packard shutters excepted, shutters are no longer made; so using a shuttered lens on a LF camera depends on keeping the shutters working.

Workarounds are possible, not just the top hat/flat cap (strike out according to social class :)) method, but a shutter can be simpler to use, as well as more flexible.
 
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I haven't looked closely but isn't the aperture also part of the shutter or can that be mounted separately?
 
Afterthought. I mentioned process lenses above; they were designed for copying, and hence were corrected for 1:1 rather than the longer distances more usual outdoors. They should also be well corrected for colour (colour reproductions). Some at least, when a shutter was added, had the spacing of the elements slightly altered to improve corrections at infinity, so a shutter mounted process lens could give better results in general work.
 
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Apertures are usually "built in" to shutters, but Waterhouse stops predate them. With the advent of smaller shutters came smaller holes (obviously) and some shutter mounted lenses actually have smaller apertures depending on which shutter they are mounted in (though usually only about a half stop or so).
 
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On prices, I just looked at Ffords who have the same lens, one in a shutter and one requiring a Sinar shutter. The shuttered version is £250, the Sinar £100. In theory, it's possible to build a lens collection at a lower cost if you don't mind swapping shutters. The Sinar advantage is of course the lower cost of lenses, although Sinar shutters have slower fast speeds. The equivalent of a Sinar shutter that could be easily fitted to any LF camera would be an interesting proposition.
 
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And another afterthought, this time on the aperture stop. The position of the aperture is actually a factor in the design of the lens, as it affects some aberration corrections.
 
Where would the shutter be placed? I assume on the back so that would mean moving the ground glass and darkslide holder further back?
 
Obviously, I haven't looked at the link, but this type of shutter is usually mounted in front of the lens.
 
sirch said:
Where would the shutter be placed? I assume on the back so that would mean moving the ground glass and darkslide holder further back?
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The link I posted would be in front of the lens like the Thornton roller blind shutters of old. At the moment I'm using an in front of lens gravity operated guillotine shutter I designed and 3D printed. Lens board has to be vertical though. Maths and speed tester shows OK at 1/30 when shutter gap bigger than lens opening. With smaller gaps I'm thinking that there will be a complication of effective speed depending on aperture but the blades for 1/60 and 1/125 seem to be good enough. Trouble is my lens only goes down to f/16 so for faster film and a sunny day the effect of an even narrower gap accelerating as it drops could show up as a gradient.
 
I'm about to go out, but given the (assumed) small diameter of a lens, surely the effect of acceleration due to gravity over such a small distance would be negligible? The actual amount is simple to calculate when the size is known.

Shutter efficiency of a leaf shutter has always depended on the aperture (which is one reason why a marked 1/500th can give a 1/300th exposure when a lens is stopped down. I've never worried about allowing for it in practice (B&W). With a slit type shutter, the same reasoning would apply. I think - I may have further thoughts later, but by then someone will have corrected me!
 
The shutters I’ve been working on have been designed initially with a view to mounting them in front of the lens. However, my long term plan is to integrate my current dual blade electronic shutter into the focal plane of my SnapShot body (without moving the film holder/ground glass) to create a new Speed Graphic style body.

I’m still a little way off the integrated version, mainly due to the need to shrink it down but smaller stepper motors don’t have enough torque, but the front mounted version is frustratingly close. I just need another 29 hours in the day to get it sorted
 
There is a simple solution to requiring more hours in a day. You just need to ditch the idea that an hour has to be 60 minutes. Metricate. A 50 minute hour gives you 29 hours (rounded) in a day.
 
StephenM said:
There is a simple solution to requiring more hours in a day. You just need to ditch the idea that an hour has to be 60 minutes. Metricate. A 50 minute hour gives you 29 hours (rounded) in a day.
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Perfect solution, cheers.

I’d better get to sleep though now, I’ve got a long week ahead of me tomorrow.
 
As a serious aside, the idea of variable length hours is not new. The Romans divided the day into two sets of twelve hours, 12 for the day and 12 for the night. This meant that day and night hours were different lengths.
 
It seems that people want a shutter for non-shuttered lenses but this thread has got me wondering if it would be possible to turn an old 35mm camera into a lens board with shutter.
 
I'm assuming you're thinking of using the focal plane shutter? The problem I can see is the physical size being 1" x 1.5". I'm not certain that lenses like my 24" Apo Artar have a small enough diameter to fit. Additionally, there will be the difficulty of ensuring light trapping.

Most of the shutterless lenses are probably lenses designed for larger formats (11x14 and up) either dating from the days when shutters weren't needed quite so much with slow materials, or were made for process cameras. Hence, physically large. I might stick up a photo of some of my larger lenses with a 35mm camera lens to compare. An Ilex 5 shutter makes a Copal 3 look subminiature!

On the other hand, it could be possible with some lenses.
 
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