Why do leaf shutters work so well with strobes?

[biomed]

IIRC the Nikkorex (of 1962) was the first FP shutter SLR to have that - it was one of the key features of the Copal Square shutter over shutters with horizontally travelling curtains.

Thanks - I had forgotten the Nikkorex.

Mike

 

[Keith]

Tha base of knowledge at this place never ceases to impress me ... thanks all who have shared their expertise. 🙂

 

[Ronald M]

Late to the party, but a synchro shutter is not always superior. The problem is it takes time to open and close and only the fully open portion is timed. Now if one uses F16 at 1/1000, the timing mechanism does not start when the blades clear F16, but only when fully open.
Consequently, there is always a chance of over exposure at small stops and high speeds.

Kodak actually printed this warning on the instruction sheet that came with High Speed Ektachrome in the 1960s. HSE was a whopping 160 ASA! And a printed instruction sheet came in the box with the film. It also gave suggested exposures for sun, bleach, cloudy, open shade and what kind of filter to use under various lights.

Now we have auto white balance (should you chose it), auto exposure, self calibrating shutter, histogram on the camera back to see if the photo came out, sensor dirt, cosmic rays, computers. 50 years progress.

 

[Dwig]

Late to the party, but a synchro shutter is not always superior. The problem is it takes time to open and close and only the fully open portion is timed. Now if one uses F16 at 1/1000, the timing mechanism does not start when the blades clear F16, but only when fully open.
Consequently, there is always a chance of over exposure at small stops and high speeds. ...

Quite true of all mechanical leaf shutters. Computer controlled electronic leaf shutters are often "immune" to this issue as the computer compensates.

Some electronic leaf shutters use a trick to achieve very high shutter speeds. The trick is that they don't open all the way and thus don't take as much time to get open. The blades don't travel fast enough to achieve the very high shutter speed at maximum aperture, but they do when the aperture is small. They also use one set of blades to act as both iris and shutter. Setting an f/stop, via manual control or a meter's auto setting, results in the "shutter" blades only opening to the needed diameter.

 

[Eric T]

Great thread - I've learned a lot. Thanks for asking Keith!
Eric

 

[Ronald M]

Thank you sir .... I'm off to get some right now!

😀 😀 😀

They will cook and blind the model. Lowel DP 750 watt bounced into the Special Lowel heat resistant umbrella is a beautiful light. Use it all day and the model will not complain.

 

[giellaleafapmu]

Just out of curiosity: why do you say it worked better? I mean, outside if you are planning on having the exposure, say, 1 stop below what would be appropriate with a certain natural light and then fill, enhance, model, your light by using strobes, then ok, it is a great advantage to be able to sync at higher speed because it allows to use smaller strobes or to be in business even under strong light, but in the studio almost always
the strobe's duration is the exposition time, why did you need higher shutter speed?

GLF

 

[milosdevino]

As an aside to the main topic, the moving slit of the focal plane shutter is what causes the eliptical wheels on fast cars that you used to see in the old photos.

 

[Soeren]

IIRC the Nikkorex (of 1962) was the first FP shutter SLR to have that - it was one of the key features of the Copal Square shutter over shutters with horizontally travelling curtains.

The FM 2 synced at 1/200 and FM2N at 1/250. FM synced at 1/125 IIRC
Best regards

 

[johank]

My Olympus Pen F aswell as my Planars and Tessars can do it at 1/500 s, all my focal plane shutters need slow speed, Contax SLR is the fastest, LIIIf and M4 the slowest.

 

[Dwig]

IIRC the Nikkorex (of 1962) was the first FP shutter SLR to have that - it was one of the key features of the Copal Square shutter over shutters with horizontally travelling curtains.

There was also the Ricoh Singlex at roughly the same time. It was a near dupe of the Nikkorex and was made by Mamiya along side of the Nikkorex production (Nikon did not make the Nikkorex themselves). The Ricoh used a modified version of the Nikon F mount that would allow Nikkor F-mount lenses to mount on the Ricoh body but Ricoh lenses wouldn't mount on the Nikon bodies.

There was also a Konica model at the time using the same Copal Square shutter. All three appeared at roughly the same time.

This Copal Square shutter had its problems. While many articles state that the later Nikkormat/Nikomat line used the "Copal Square" shutter, in fact they didn't. They used the Copal Square II shutter which was more refined and much more reliable.

It was Copal that developed the Copal Compact Square shutter which became the forerunner in the smaller body designs and introduced the faster than 1/125 X-sync capability. This was the shutter series that gave fruit to the FM/FE series.