Would you buy a 100mm LCD shutter for $400?

**polyglot** · 24-Apr-2012, 22:37

Hypothetically I can build 100mm LCD shutters (for barrel lenses) and sell them for about $400. They'd do 1/500 up to hours of exposure, plus intervalometer and x-sync. Optionally radio remote controllable for extra cost.

So, is there a market here? Your affirmative reply will not be taken as an undertaking to purchase!

Any other comments welcome too...

**Steve Smith** · 24-Apr-2012, 22:41

How opaque is it in it's 'closed' setting?

I used to work with Raychem's flexible LCD panels and those would not be opaque enough to form a shutter.

sSteve.

**cosmicexplosion** · 24-Apr-2012, 23:02

yeah tell us more about it, clearly new technology,

how clear is it how dark is it

**polyglot** · 24-Apr-2012, 23:07

Waiting on an answer from manufacturer but they're pretty dense. Note that these are pi-cells with compensating film, which gives much higher contrast than a normal (let alone flexible) LCD. Plain TN cells are not suitable at all because of viewing angle limitations causing light leaks.

**Corran** · 25-Apr-2012, 01:39

If it was easy to adapt to a lensboard or something that would be quite interesting...

**Lachlan 717** · 25-Apr-2012, 02:30

I'd have a good look at one!

**polyglot** · 25-Apr-2012, 05:34

Corran: it would be a flange, which you would bolt to the lensboard of your choice. You would then need a flange adapter of the appropriate size to bolt your (brass barrel) lens to it.

You could in principle make an adapter so that you can screw copal-compatible cells into it, but I don't see that as particularly important since we can already buy working copal shutters. The aim is to provide a fast* accurate shutter for very large-diameter lenses for which there is currently nothing available.

* faster than the ~1/15 you get from a Packard.