soundcard shutter tester works great!

[r.e.]

It is unclear to me why a good microphone and digital recorder (whether external or via a sound card) won't do the same thing within a reasonable margin of error, run into software such as Audacity or Adobe Audition, leaving aside the complication of a leaf shutter. Could someone explain why a microphone, if one has one, won't give results that are as acceptable as the gizzmo being discussed in this thread?

[Mike Davis]

It is unclear to me why a good microphone and digital recorder won't do the same thing within a reasonable margin of error, run into software such as Audacity or Adobe Audition, leaving aside the complication of a leaf shutter. Could someone explain why a microphone, if one has one, won't give acceptable results?

In my case, an Ilex shutter makes alot of noise, alot of noise. I have good mics (Senheiser ME66, various PZM's, Shure Lav, and EV vocal mics). My results at 1 second and .5 second were about the same. But, I had real trouble with the other results. Light is faster than sound. and the photo transistor is more discerning than sound. Give it a try yourself and see how it works.

Realistically I spent $16 and that included $6 for a new mono audio cable to connect to my sound card. It took less than an hour to put together and that includes the time for the soldering iron to warm up. I spent longer in traffic to get the parts and get home than it took to assemble.

Mike

[r.e.]

Thanks Mike,

I'm going to try it with a Schoeps mic, Sound Devices recorder and Adobe Audition, just for the fun of it. And then maybe I'll try this gizzmo, for which I can get the components a ten minute walk from where I live - no traffic

I have one older lens, a Wollensak Veritar made in the 50s, for which I know that a couple of the shutter speeds are sufficiently off that I take it into account. But my general reaction to this thread is that with a recently made lens/shutter in good shape, the variances that are being talked about are insignificant when it comes to real world film development. When I take a lousy photo, wonky shutter speed is not the first culprit that comes to mind

[Mike Davis]

Thanks,

I have one older lens, a Wollensak Veritar made in the 50s, for which I know that a couple of the shutter speeds are sufficiently off that I take it into account. But my general reaction to this thread is that with a recently made lens/shutter in good shape, the variances that are being talked about are insignificant when it comes to real world film development. When I take a lousy photo, wonky shutter speed is not the first culprit that comes to mind

Makes sense to me. I also knew that my ektar was off at 1 second and at 1/5. But now I feel better about it.

Mike

[r.e.]

[QUOTE=Mike Davis;246809]But now I feel better about it./QUOTE]

Linus had that all figured out

The mic that I'll try for this was used to record Tom Cruise's voice in several of his films. Not sure if using the mic to record the sound of a shutter is a demotion or promotion.

[Mike Davis]

[QUOTE=r.e.;246811]

But now I feel better about it./QUOTE]

Linus had that all figured out

The mic that I'll try for this was used to record Tom Cruise's voice in several of his films. Not sure if using the mic to record the sound of a shutter is a demotion or promotion.

Well that could be Linus on the piano, or Linus Torvald on linux. Either way, they bothfigured out some things.

As for the mic, I guess it depends on its view of Scientology. Alternately, it depends on which films.

Mike

[r.e.]

Always fun to come across someone on the net with a sense of humour.

I think that the the last Cruise-control film that the mic was used on was The Last Samurai, maybe War of the Worlds. Really, I'm not kidding.

[Marko]

Well that could be Linus on the piano, or Linus Torvald on linux. Either way, they bothfigured out some things.

And of course Linus Pauling...

[cyrus]

this whole thing seems crazy complicated to do - in terms of circuit complexity. Why on earth wouldn't you just use a simple timer IC circuit and an opto-electronic sensor (photo-eye) - I'm POSITIVE there are TONS of instructions for doing that on the 'net.

That's basically all it is!

Hey I made one of these so ipso facto it can't be complicated in the least! its actually quite easy to hook up a photo sensor and battery to a plug that goes into the computer. That's all there is to it.

[65Galaxie]

If using just a mic maybe the thing to do is stick a high frequency tweeter in front of the shutter and hit it with some sine waves or white noise but not too high of volume as most tweeters can only handle a few watts sine wave. It's probably easier to just get the photocell and wire it up.