Supermatic Shutter

[Kenn Gallisdorfer]

This forum has been helpful in the past so I'll ask for more help. I have a Supermatic shutter that I do not know what all of the levers are for. Besides the cocking lever, shutter release and fstop lever there are two items on this shutter that I don't know the purpose. A small button near the cocking lever and below that a spring loaded knob. Are the any directions available for this shutter on-line some where?

Thanks>> kenn

[Mark Sampson]

Cock the shutter, push in the round button, fire the shutter. It will now be open for viewing and focussing. Re-cock the shutter to close it for making the exposure. (I had to think a bit; explaining this is like explaining how to tie a tie- easy to do w/out thought, after the first thousand times.)

[Diane Maher]

Or you can cock the shutter, set it to the T setting and fire the shutter. Just fire the shutter a second time after focusing to close it.

[Glenn Thoreson]

The button will let you set your shutter speed before focusing. To focus using it, set your shutter speed, cock and release the shutter while holding the button down. After you have focused and set your f/stop, re-cock the shutter and it will close. You are now ready to insert your film holder and shoot. It's called a Press focus button. The other lever is the flash sync timer. There is a little button you slide to select the time. It will be marked "M" for medium peak flash bulbs and "F" for focal plane bulbs. These shutters are supposed to sync for electronic flash by not cocking the timer. That is something you need to try with film before relying on it as they don't always work. To use bulbs, select the type, cock the timer after you cock the shutter and fire away. Fun, eh?

[tor kviljo]

I have had (and recently sold) a Kodak Ektar 12" in Supermatic shutter. The shutter is working as described above, but on this one, also the X synch is set on the selector wheel close to the little spring loaded flash-timer lever. Charging both the shutter & the flash-timer is necessary on this one to get firing of electronic flash on X synch. However, when both the flash-timer & shutter were charged, the B & T settings did not work as supposed to, but instead the shutter worked on a fast shutter speed. Using flash & B/T thus necessitates tripping the flash manually I guess.