Measuring shutter speeds

N

nickchew

Guest
I'm sure someone must have thought about this before.

I want to measure the shutter speeds on my Zorki. Since the shutters are fairly loud, I was wondering if I could use my laptop to record the sound of the shutters opening and closing and using a software to measure the time distance between the 2 sounds.

I tried using Audacity (a freeware) that records and shows wave forms but I have difficulty deciding which part of the wave form to take the measurements from.

I tried with my G2 but there is too much sound from the motor which makes recording difficuit.

Anyone can help?

Thanks

Nick
 
For curtain shutters, I'm not sure that will work. Speed is controlled not only by opening the curtain but by varying the curtain slit opening size. I believe a high speed strobe is the best way. By varying the frequency of the strobe, you should be able to see the slit paint strobe lines across the frame of the film. You know how many lines you should see for what frequency. Avoiding the sync problem will take some thought. And it's probably not good for low speeds.
I just measured the speeds of some common leaf shutter 35's using a laser and photodiode. No camera got close to its top speed of 1/500th.
 
Hey Nick R
Thanks for the reply.
I'm have to look into that suggestion.
Nick C ;-)
 
it would probably be difficult and you would only find out how off your zorki really is. I prefer living in the dream world of perfectly made russian cameras ;)
 
There are plans for an interesting DIY shutter tester available from several places. It uses a very simple circuit hooked up to a photocell and microphone output. You plug it into your computer and "record" the output, which gives you your shutter speed.

Of course, I do have access to a digital camera that does 16000fps, so I could always take some videos. Anyone interested in seeing some shutters at high speed? :)
 
Because of slit width variancing, I don't see how the sound method can be accurate at high speed. In other words, what is the shutterspeed of a 1/8th inch slit travelling across the focal plane in 1 millisecond as compared to a 1/16th slit travelling across the shutter plane in the same 1 millisecond?
 
I will have to look. One of our local libraries used to have a book by Ed Romney where he gives a method to check shutter speeds using a photograph of a television set. Anybody have that book? It looked like it wasn't too complicated.
 
Unfortunately the TV method only works for a rather limited range of shutter speeds, depending on what video format your country uses.
 
Bob_McBob said:
Unfortunately the TV method only works for a rather limited range of shutter speeds, depending on what video format your country uses.
Click to expand...

It works good for 1/60 and above. For 1s to 1/8 I compare the sound to another camera with a known good shutter 1/15 and 1/30 I haven't figured out an easy way to time them, other than running film through them.
 
Dean said:
Plans for the cheap sound card method are here:

http://www.open.hr/~dpleic/photo/Shutter.html


A more complex one is here:

http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/shutterspeedtester.html

I made the cheap version and it works. I built it using a slightly larger than film sized piece of 1/4" hardboard. My only cost was for the phototransistor, which is available at Radio Shack.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm the author of the first Web page listed above, and I've sent this shutter tester to several members of RFF - maybe they could provide some feedback ;)

Anyway, the one I built is OK up to about 1/250. Higher speeds can be difficult to measure - but playing with the right light source might help. I've used the plain lightbulb (40W) from a desk lamp. A laser or some strong flashlight might help for higher speeds.

Also, this method can't really show problems with "dragging" or shutter "capping" - for that you'll have to try the TV screen method - or use your monitor for that - lower the refresh rate to 60 Hz, and you're set to go. Rick Oleson's pages show how it's done.

Denis
 
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