Are the higher shutter speeds on large format lenses always off?

[GoodOldNorm]

I have four lenses that I have tested with a shutter speed tester. Most of the shutter speeds are as they should be apart from the 1/250 and Higher speeds. Is it common for the higher speeds to be slow by 1/2- 1 stop?

[Oslolens]

Only one of my shutter where acurate, a Fujinon-W 210mm, sold to a man in need. Else both small and big where not up to the task of giving 1 stop shorter than the next.

Sent fra min SM-G975F via Tapatalk

[Kevin Crisp]

I find 1/125th and above are generally optimistic. Age of the shutter doesn’t seem to matter.

[Bob Salomon]

Shutter speeds are,within manufacturer’s specification if they are +\- 30% of their marked speeds.

[Rayt]

So at which range will a shutter be most accurate aside from B and T :)

[Oslolens]

So at which range will a shutter be most accurate aside from B and T :)On a non-worn shutter, every speed except the fastest and the second fastest is my experience. I prefer to sell those I don't trust, and aim to write the actual shutter speeds on the lens board, as that seem the best place to keep them.

Sent fra min SM-G975F via Tapatalk

[Rayt]

Normally I never have a need to shoot above 1/60 but I always shoot my Cooke PS945 (Copal 3) at the fastest speed which is 1/125. I’ll take the +/- 30% error because I have not seen anything amiss yet.

[Dan Fromm]

Hmm. Shutter efficiency? Remember, shutter speed testers measure the time that the shutter is open at all. At higher speeds, leaf shutters are only partially open for most of the time they're open. Jes' sayin'.

[Jim Jones]

Dan is right. Checking between-the-lens shutter speeds is best done with an oscilloscope. This can also be used for checking sync timing and shutter bounce.

[Alan9940]

Not to be flippant, but after 40 years of LF photography I've never used a speed above 1/60. I would highly doubt that the faster speeds are accurate. The only one I'm sure that's not accurate at the higher speeds is my Ilex #4; it was serviced by Carol Flutot a well back and she provides a test list of all the actual speeds.

[fotopfw]

LF is not for horse races, I've never been in a situation that I needed a faster shutter speed than 1/60. In landscapes, even longer times. I am aware that fast shutter times could be unreliable, so I would never opt for using those. With people, studio, flash stops everything, fast shutter speeds again not necessary.

[domaz]

LF is not for horse races, I've never been in a situation that I needed a faster shutter speed than 1/60. In landscapes, even longer times. I am aware that fast shutter times could be unreliable, so I would never opt for using those. With people, studio, flash stops everything, fast shutter speeds again not necessary.

This totally depends on your style of photography though. Some people shoot for bokeh. Ever try to shoot a f/2.5 lens wide open with 400 speed film? Suddenly even the 1/1000 shutter speed on your focal plane shutter camera won't be fast enough.

[GoodOldNorm]

Not to be flippant, but after 40 years of LF photography I've never used a speed above 1/60. I would highly doubt that the faster speeds are accurate.. Nothing to worry about then :)

[Bernice Loui]

Shutter speed of 1/60 sec is not that useful. Consider if the commonly used aperture is f22 (or smaller), in bright sun with ISO 100 speed film is not going to be 1/125 sec shutter speed. The belief of needing accurate high shutter speeds appears to be a carry over from smaller film and digital based imager cameras.

~View camera image making is not the same and the needs-priorities of smaller film formats or digital based imaging should not be projected-extrapolated to sheet film-view camera based images.

Accurate slow speeds is more useful for LF image making. Having a shutter that could time down accurately to 8 seconds (or longer) is more useful than an accurate shutter speed of 1/125 sec or 1/60 sec.

Shutter speed accuracy of 1/32 second and slower is where shutter speed accuracy is important.


Bernice

[Pere Casals]

I have four lenses that I have tested with a shutter speed tester. Most of the shutter speeds are as they should be apart from the 1/250 and Higher speeds. Is it common for the higher speeds to be slow by 1/2- 1 stop?

Higher speeds are not always slower, I measured 1/500 for the 1/400 marked in an old compur of a Symmar convertible.

Best, buy a shutter tester (from $15) and know how your real speeds are, and if the same speed is accurately repeated.

Shutters when new they were sold with a -/+30% tolerance, so 1/30 could be 1/20 or 1/40, which is a full stop range, and warranty was not to be applied because gear was "in specs". So a new shutter could expose 1 stop different than another one.

...this was when new !!! after some decades anything can happen. Some people claim that TMX has to be exposed (say) EI 80 instead 100 but many have never tested their shutters :)

Negative film has a wide highlight latitude and nothing bad happens if you overexpose a bit as a safety factor, but if you are serious about metering you want to know the real speeds, in special if you shot slides.

[Jody_S]

Someone who remembers their integral calculus from uni could do the calculation of the average amount of light that passes through a shutter given that the blades open then immediately close, so the light reaching the film has to be calculated from the moment light passes through cracks between the shutter blades until those cracks close again. The shutter 'speed' in the center will be very different from the edge of the shutter in the center of one of the blades. In practice, a high shutter speed will act like a reverse center filter, letting far more light in the center of the lens than on the periphery. Given that the only practical use for high speeds in normal photography is for flash photography, so long as the room is dark the limitations of the leaf shutter have no effect on usage; the flash only fires once the blades are fully open. Of course math might not be necessary, a simple apparatus that measures total light passing through a shutter connected to any advanced oscilloscope will allow the necessary calculation, as they mosty have integration functions now.

If you calculate the total volume of light that passes through the shutter from start of cycle until the end, and average that over the total area of the shutter to get the average open time for the entire area, that calculated average might be closer to the nominal shutter speed. So a 1/400s speed might have 1/1000s at 5 points around the periphery, and 1/150s in the center, but averaged over the area that might come out to close to 1/400s.

[Whir-Click]

Dan, Jim, and Jody hit the nail on the head. The observation that top speeds seem 1/2 to 1 stop slow reflects the limitations of testing leaf shutters with commonly available equipment. At the fastest speeds on any leaf shutter, the efficiency (the time it takes for the blades to open and close fully) has a significant impact.

Simple testers measure the total time from when the shutter begins to open until the shutter is fully closed. However, shutter blades are still obscuring the aperture for a significant portion of this total time. The time the blades are fully open is significantly shorter than the total time the blades spend opening and closing. The effective shutter speed, which is engraved on the shutter, is the halfway point between the total and full open times and delivers the desired exposure.

Consistent with Rayt’s experience, most modern shutters perform at their stated, effective shutter speeds, within 1/3 stop. The top speeds on older shutters may be slower, but can still be reliable.

Bottom line: if your smartphone or computer shutter speed tester shows that your slow and medium speeds are accurate, but your top speeds are 1/2 to 1 stop slow, it’s a good indication that everything is actually working as intended.

I’ve tried to summarize and illustrate this on my website: https://alphaxbetax.com/services/#Speed-Test

[cowanw]

In practice, a high shutter speed will act like a reverse center filter, letting far more light in the center of the lens than on the periphery.

I don't expect that you are saying that smaller shutter opening i.e. smaller fstops do not cover the entire film format intended. Insofar as the lens spreads the beam out whether the light comes through the center or the periphery of the lens, the reverse center filter analogy seems faulty. Eh?

[Drew Wiley]

I've only had one LF shutter where the top speed was accurate. On all the others, mostly purchased new, it was way off, even if all the lower speeds were spot on. I have a serious shutter tester which cost a hecka lot more than $15. But this is a non-issue. I never use high speeds in LF work anyway.

[Jody_S]

I don't expect that you are saying that smaller shutter opening i.e. smaller fstops do not cover the entire film format intended. Insofar as the lens spreads the beam out whether the light comes through the center or the periphery of the lens, the reverse center filter analogy seems faulty. Eh?

This applies at wide-open apertures since the shutter blades are usually in very close proximity to the aperture blades, but there are few circumstances where you would stop down to f32 then shoot at 1/400s. Maybe if you're trying to photograph a nuclear explosion, or you find a stash of 1600 ISO film that you must use in full sun.

So if you're shooting at full aperture to get shallow DoF, and you need that 1/400s, its easy to see that the center part of the lens is going to get far more light than the outer extremity where the last part of the shutter blade retracts outside the optical path. Now does this act as a reverse center filter or does it affect DoF, given that it's at the optical node of the lens? I suppose it depends on the lens type you're using? If you mount your 1860s f3.5 Petzval in front of a Shanel 5 shutter (or use a front-mounted LUC shutter on 'Instant'), you are definitely getting a reverse center filter at top speed, which is what you would be using (the lens' image circle will also be a factor, if you are using the entire field or just the center). With a modern plasmat and center-mounted shutter, I don't know enough about optics to say exactly how it will affect the image. I've never shot lf at high speeds, but I've used plenty of 35mm rangefinders with leaf shutters and plasmat lenses, I've never noticed dark corners. However, I don't recall ever shooting at full aperture either, since I mostly used zone focus for street photography.

[cowanw]

Let me restate what I was getting at. For whatever maximum aperture you are using the shutter must pass though Aperture openings equal to smaller aperture fstops on the way to your chosen fstop. For example If you choose F 8 and as the shutter opens it passes by the diameter of F 64, 32, 16, 11.
You seem to be saying that when the shutter size is at and passing by these smaller diameter sizes the light (exposure) is concentrated in the center of the film or, alternately, optically vignetted on the outer edges of the film.
This cannot be true. If anything, by avoiding vignetting light distribution (coverage) across the breadth of the film is better at smaller fstops (I am thinking that shutter speed is not relevant to this particular discussion.) (Depth of field is also a different and maybe interesting idea. But we are speaking of exposure relative to size of aperture)

[Bernice Loui]

Easy, the film cinema folks do this all the time.

Apply enough Neutral Density filter to reduce the amount of light to film for a given shutter speed, DONE.


Bernice



This totally depends on your style of photography though. Some people shoot for bokeh. Ever try to shoot a f/2.5 lens wide open with 400 speed film? Suddenly even the 1/1000 shutter speed on your focal plane shutter camera won't be fast enough.

[Bruce Watson]

Is it common for the higher speeds to be slow by 1/2- 1 stop?

Yes. But it doesn't matter that much since you typically can't use those shutter speeds much anyway. In the decade I kept track of such things I only used a 1/125 speed once or twice. Nothing faster.

I found with 5x4 that I typically used apertures around f/16 at the widest. There's little reason to shoot wide open because of lens aberations. Most of these older lenses really want to be stopped down a couple of stops to control aberations and sharpen up. This in turn requires more time. Shutter speeds 1/8 or less are common. And this is with high speed films like TMY-2.

[cuypers1807]

I use the fastest shutter speeds quite often in studio portraiture using strobes since leaf shutters sync at all speeds. If the shutter doesn't quite make it to 1/125, it doesn't matter because the strobes are controlling the exposure.

[Bob Salomon]

I use the fastest shutter speeds quite often in studio portraiture using strobes since leaf shutters sync at all speeds. If the shutter doesn't quite make it to 1/125, it doesn't matter because the strobes are controlling the exposure.

But the shutter speed controls the ambient light. So, if you are using the fastest speeds you get dark backgrounds.

[cuypers1807]

But the shutter speed controls the ambient light. So, if you are using the fastest speeds you get dark backgrounds.
True, but I don't really want ambient light messing with my exposure if I am using strobes. I light my background if I don't want it dark.

[cablerelease]

Someone mentioned an app to check speeds. Which app is this? Is it accurate? Or would it be better to get a cheap dedicated tester? I understand it might be hard to get accurate readings on high speeds without very expensive equipment but, just to know if the speeds under 1/60th are close would be helpful.

[Jim Noel]

I have four lenses that I have tested with a shutter speed tester. Most of the shutter speeds are as they should be apart from the 1/250 and Higher speeds. Is it common for the higher speeds to be slow by 1/2- 1 stop?

Yes. My repairman for many years asked me which 3or 4 speeds I wanted accurate. He usuallywas abe to make them so. He always also reminded me that speeds faster tan 1/100 sec were controlled by an addtional spring and were highly unreliable. For those speeds I used the focal plane shutter on the Speed.

[Bob Salomon]

True, but I don't really want ambient light messing with my exposure if I am using strobes. I light my background if I don't want it dark.

But others may do portraiture within the subjects environment and want to emphasize or de emphasize the setting. That’s where shutter speeds come in.

[Jody_S]

For whatever maximum aperture you are using the shutter must pass though Aperture openings equal to smaller aperture fstops on the way to your chosen fstop. For example If you choose F 8 and as the shutter opens it passes by the diameter of F 64, 32, 16, 11.
You seem to be saying that when the shutter size is at and passing by these smaller diameter sizes the light (exposure) is concentrated in the center of the film or, alternately, optically vignetted on the outer edges of the film.
This cannot be true.


There are 2 issues that I raised in my post. 1 is the 'true' shutter speed. I said you need to measure the total volume of light passing through the shutter and divide by the opening to get a true shutter speed, since different parts of the opening receive wildly divergent opening times at high shutter speeds. You cannot measure this with a $15 shutter speed tester, since that will only give you the center of the shutter which is open the longest. Hence the common idea that leaf shutter high speeds are consistently slow. If you measure at the edge in the right spot, you will find they are consistently fast. I do not know of any easy way to do the required calculation to get a 'true' shutter speed without doing integration, either with an engineering software or an integrating oscilloscope. I do own such an animal, but it's a 1980s model and I can't find a user manual that would get me started, nor do I have any particular interest in proving my case.

If anyone is having trouble following this, imagine a garden hose. You measure the volume of water that passes through the garden hose and find it allows, say, 60 gallons per minute. Now you want to connect this to a timed valve for a fountain, and you need to know how long that valve stays open. So you run the valve through 1 cycle, and collect all of the water that passes through your garden hose. You measure 1 gallon. Now you want to know how long the valve was open: you divide that 1 gallon by the 60 gallons per minute at full open, and you calculate that your valve was open 1/60 minutes, or 1 second. It doesn't matter if the valve wasn't fully open for that 1 second, or if a portion of the area of the valve was open for 3 seconds; what you have measured is the effective, or practical, open time for that mechanical valve, without worrying about the underlying physics.


The 2nd issue is what effect these wildly divergent shutter speeds have on the image. I suggested that they may act as a reverse center filter, and you quite correctly point out that this is highly unlikely with a modern lens and center-mounted shutter. I gave the real-world example of an antique Petzval with a rear-mounted Shanel shutter to show that in some circumstances this might be so. But the question of what effect this variable shutter speed has on the image with a modern lens in a shutter at max speed and opening is beyond me (where's Nodda Duma when we need him?), I simply know how to calculate the average shutter speed for the entire area. Which, as I said, might be a lot closer to nominal speeds than most people think, since I don't think Copal was in the business of marketing false shutter speeds.

[Neal Chaves]

I did a lot of aerial photography from small airplanes with 4X5 Technika, 4X5 Crown Graphic, 6X7 Rapid Omegas and 6X9 Fujifilm RFs. Most of this was black and white and color negative film, but I did do quite a bit of color transparency as well. I always used 1/500 sec. on these Compur, Copal and Seiko shutters and my exposures were accurate.

[Bernice Loui]

Question of shutter speeds is complex and why the initial suggestion of dis-regarding higher shutter speeds on LF lenses, specially with large apertures.

Adding to this problem are is the volume of "low-buck" shutter speed tester-apps that IMO, should never be allowed to ever be sold as they cause more problems than they solve. Problems with any instrumentation, there must be some depth of understanding on how the instrumentation actually works, what the expected measurements should be based on calculations and modeling with data and adjustments to the data based on real world behavior of shutters, lenses involved, their taking aperture and ....

To measure actual light "volume" allowed past a shutter requires a light integrating sphere with the correct photodiode sensor properly installed on the integrating sphere and a storage O'scope (analog or digital). Another aid would be a very high speed camera to capture the mechanical motions of the shutter from closed to opened. This is a far departure from the low-buck shutter speed app for a "phone" or similar.

Many decades ago Sinar published info sheet# 2 addressing this question of shutter speed, actual light volume reaching the film, lens diameter, lens taking aperture.. After some digging ( now have time to do this kinda stuff) the info sheet# 2 was found. Here is a scan.

Point is, avoid using shutter speeds faster than 1/30 sec which is often not much of an issue due to the typical taking apertures for LF. As mentioned previously, if you're needing to use large taking apertures apply as much neutral density filter as needed to force the shutter time down to 1/30 and slower. This is what I've done for decades. It works, works GOOD.

As for absolute film exposure precision and accuracy, use strobe, indoors, in a studio setting. Trying to get consistent film exposures to less than 1/3 stop using a shutter outdoors is questionable at best.


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Quite possible the measured shutter using an "app" could be lower for less apparent reasons.
Regardless, shutter speed faster than 1/60 sec is just not that relevant or important in the real world of LF film image making.



Bernice

[Pere Casals]

low buck shutter testers provide totally accurate real speed measuring, if one knows how to do it, it is as easy as taking the midpoints of the unsaturated ramps

[Bernice Loui]

OK.... here we go.... again.
How do YOU ascertain that "low buck" shutter tester is accurate. Does it have a certification of accuracy traceable to NBS?



Bernice





low buck shutter testers provide totally accurate real speed measuring, if one knows how to do it, it is as easy as taking the midpoints of the unsaturated ramps

[Corran]

Is it common for the higher speeds to be slow by 1/2- 1 stop?

Yes. Factor it in if you need.


LF is not for horse races, I've never been in a situation that I needed a faster shutter speed than 1/60. In landscapes, even longer times. I am aware that fast shutter times could be unreliable, so I would never opt for using those. With people, studio, flash stops everything, fast shutter speeds again not necessary.

The Photographer Who Shoots F1 with a 1913 Graflex 4×5 View Camera
(https://petapixel.com/2017/05/13/photographer-shoots-f1-1913-graflex-4x5-view-camera/)


Shutter speed of 1/60 sec is not that useful.

~View camera image making is not the same and the needs-priorities of smaller film formats or digital based imaging should not be projected-extrapolated to sheet film-view camera based images.

Accurate slow speeds is more useful for LF image making. Having a shutter that could time down accurately to 8 seconds (or longer) is more useful than an accurate shutter speed of 1/125 sec or 1/60 sec.



You say this, despite the constant drum-beat on this forum that before anyone buys this or that thing they should consider what they want to use the camera for, the image-making goals, etc.

So perhaps don't assume everyone else should shoot images in the same way you do?

(I do, on occasion, shoot at the fastest shutter speeds on a wide-aperture lens outdoors, such as my 135mm f/3.5 and 150mm f/2.8 Xenotar lenses, the latter of which claims 1/200 shutter speed but hits 1/125 as measured, and does in fact underexpose about a stop when at f/2.8 due to the effects discussed in the thread. One should TEST their personal equipment / system, both using appropriate tools and in practical application to ascertain what works for them.)

[Jody_S]

To measure actual light "volume" allowed past a shutter requires a light integrating sphere with the correct photodiode sensor properly installed on the integrating sphere and a storage O'scope

Bernice

The use of a light integrating sphere is superfluous, as the variable being measured is time, not light. The light measurement is merely a proxy, so all you need is some sort of apparatus uninfluenced by external variables. A dark room is more than adequate.

But the Sinar sales brochure does confirm what I was saying about shutter speed accuracy (Copal wasn't in the business of false advertising, the nominal speeds are correct at full aperture) and the effect of a behind-the-lens leaf shutter (will act as a reverse center filter and darken the edges of a photo). I completely missed the Sinar shutter while giving an example simply because I have never owned or used one. They don't come in 1890s mahogany and they're stupidly expensive.

[Bernice Loui]

Using an light integrating sphere reduces one more possible variable, if you're going to really do this accurate this is what should be done. Even a modest container of some sort will do (aka dark room). What the light is essentially poured into just needs to be controlled.

Which is why that Sinar info# 2 was posted. The entire topic of shutter speeds is complex which is why a simple answer will not do IF one is after a much deeper understanding of all involved.

The more interesting history of this topic of BIG lenses with FAST shutter speeds would be German WW-II aero recon technology where they kept trying to increase the effective shutter speed on big aero recon cameras. Eventually Fairchild invented the shutter synced to effective ground speed of the aircraft while these images were made ... with the Germans having great difficulty figuring out how the US folks did this..

Think nuff said on this topic.


Bernice




The use of a light integrating sphere is superfluous, as the variable being measured is time, not light. The light measurement is merely a proxy, so all you need is some sort of apparatus uninfluenced by external variables. A dark room is more than adequate.

But the Sinar sales brochure does confirm what I was saying about shutter speed accuracy (Copal wasn't in the business of false advertising, the nominal speeds are correct at full aperture) and the effect of a behind-the-lens leaf shutter (will act as a reverse center filter and darken the edges of a photo). I completely missed the Sinar shutter while giving an example simply because I have never owned or used one. They don't come in 1890s mahogany and they're stupidly expensive.

[GoodOldNorm]

Thank you all for the input. My shutter speed tester measures speeds accurate enough for me. It confirms what I see in my negatives. I find the speed tester gives me some idea of what to expect, (how my cameras/lenses will perform). What I have taken from your answers is: that the low shutter speeds are more important for large format photography (unless using strobes) and that it is possible to use ND filters to negate shutter speed error. I do understand that all mechanical things suffer from: wear, dirt, friction, weak springs etc..Good to know my lenses are still within manufacturing tolerences. That is why I asked the question which has been well answered, thank you.

[reddesert]

The 2nd issue is what effect these wildly divergent shutter speeds have on the image. I suggested that they may act as a reverse center filter, and you quite correctly point out that this is highly unlikely with a modern lens and center-mounted shutter. I gave the real-world example of an antique Petzval with a rear-mounted Shanel shutter to show that in some circumstances this might be so. But the question of what effect this variable shutter speed has on the image with a modern lens in a shutter at max speed and opening is beyond me (where's Nodda Duma when we need him?), I simply know how to calculate the average shutter speed for the entire area. Which, as I said, might be a lot closer to nominal speeds than most people think, since I don't think Copal was in the business of marketing false shutter speeds.

For a typical modern leaf shutter, the shutter blades are very close to the aperture stop - the pupil of the lens. Roughly, the light cone coming from a point on the subject and entering the lens is a bundle that passes through the entire aperture, then is focused onto a point on the film. (In optical-speak, the pupil is conjugate to the subject and image planes.) The pupil is, in a sense, perfectly out of focus. That means that although the shutter at its fastest speed doesn't expose evenly across the pupil, it does not cause a variation in the illumination across the image.

Here's an image I borrowed from Edmund Optics that illustrates pupils and ray bundles. The pupil is the vertical line in the middle where the colored ray bundles cross at a waist (click to enlarge).
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The image comes from https://www.edmundoptics.com/knowledge-center/application-notes/imaging/sensor-relative-illumination-roll-off-and-vignetting/

[Pere Casals]

OK.... here we go.... again.
How do YOU ascertain that "low buck" shutter tester is accurate. Does it have a certification of accuracy traceable to NBS?


Me I'm a proficient mechanical and electronic engineer, I know perfectly what I'm talking about, obviously not your case.

It is easy to measure with high precision effective shutter speed with with any $0.2 photoresistor, phototransistor or photodiode and a cheap USB oscilloscope. Single requirement is using the sensor in it's linear range to not mask the ramp tops.

Also, I inform you that the shape of captured openning and closing ramps do help to obtain a diagnostic about what happens in a faulty shutter, probably you were also not aware about that.




hat means that although the shutter at its fastest speed doesn't expose evenly across the pupil, it does not cause a variation in the illumination across the image.


+1, when aperture is wide open

Anyway you have that effect when stopping the lens a lot, when aperture is a point then there is a single ray going from a point on subject to its projection on the film plane, a bit like with pin hole cameras.

[Jody_S]

For a typical modern leaf shutter, the shutter blades are very close to the aperture stop - the pupil of the lens. Roughly, the light cone coming from a point on the subject and entering the lens is a bundle that passes through the entire aperture, then is focused onto a point on the film. (In optical-speak, the pupil is conjugate to the subject and image planes.) The pupil is, in a sense, perfectly out of focus. That means that although the shutter at its fastest speed doesn't expose evenly across the pupil, it does not cause a variation in the illumination across the image.




The Sinar sales brochure illustrates in a very understandable way why one should never use a Sinar shutter outside a studio with strobes. I don't think that was their intention.

[cowanw]

The use of a light integrating sphere is superfluous, as the variable being measured is time, not light. The light measurement is merely a proxy, so all you need is some sort of apparatus uninfluenced by external variables. A dark room is more than adequate.

But the Sinar sales brochure does confirm what I was saying about shutter speed accuracy (Copal wasn't in the business of false advertising, the nominal speeds are correct at full aperture) and the effect of a behind-the-lens leaf shutter (will act as a reverse center filter and darken the edges of a photo). I completely missed the Sinar shutter while giving an example simply because I have never owned or used one. They don't come in 1890s mahogany and they're stupidly expensive.

You are absolutely right on this. I had also forgotten behind the lens shutters which may physically vignette. Thanks!

[goamules]

I was shooting an F3.8 Petzval on my Speed Graphic this week. FP4 film, metering for ISO 64, I still needed close to 1/100. So I got some black cardboard and made a waterhouse stop, to get it down to about 1/50. We'll see, have not developed yet.

If high shutter speeds are not needed, why did Graflex make 1/1000 possible on their cameras? The assumption that everyone shoots stopped down to F64, or that they don't want to capture action, is not supported by history.

[Neal Chaves]

Seems to me this question could be resolved if one has access to a camera with both focal plane and leaf shutter capability, which I do not have at this time. Something like a Speed Graphic, Pentax 67, etc. Expose a test film at 1/500 sec first through the leaf shutter and then another with the focal plane shutter while the leaf shutter was open, and then compare the two exposures.

[Bernice Loui]

Neutral density filter can bring that shutter speed required from 1/100 sec to virtually any slower shutter speed needed at f3.8.

Possible adding a waterhouse stop will alter the lens image produced on film relative to full aperture of f3.8?

Graflex cameras with the 1/1000 capable focal plane shutters were designed to be hand-held mobile press cameras with 4x5 film. Stop-action with shutter speed IS important for hand held press images. Were these focal plane shutters consistent cycle to cycle at 1/1000 second over many thousands of cycles with the expectation of exposures to within 1/3 f-stop? There was a leaf shutter offered with 1/1000 second, was that leaf shutter reliable, repeatable, durable ( thousands of cycles, constant non-stop daily) at that shutter speed? As for focal plane shutters, they have a different set of trade offs and problems compared to leaf shutters.

No "free lunch" no ideal item to meet all image making needs.

Press images made using 4x5 press cameras resulted the companion six sheet Graflex 4x5 film back. These were all part of the common press camera image kit from a time when 4x5 sheet film was the primary means to press images. Consider why the common US military surplus 6" f2.8 Aero Ektar got used on quite a number of Graflex cameras. That said, these press cameras have specific advantages and limitations.



Bernice



I was shooting an F3.8 Petzval on my Speed Graphic this week. FP4 film, metering for ISO 64, I still needed close to 1/100. So I got some black cardboard and made a waterhouse stop, to get it down to about 1/50. We'll see, have not developed yet.

If high shutter speeds are not needed, why did Graflex make 1/1000 possible on their cameras? The assumption that everyone shoots stopped down to F64, or that they don't want to capture action, is not supported by history.

[Bernice Loui]

There were other photographic shutters designed and made over the course of Foto history.

*Rotating Prism shutter (high speed cameras).
*Edgerton's Rapidtonic camera using polarizer filters and a Faraday cell.
*LCD shutters.
*Rotating disc shutter.
*And others, each have advantages and dis-advantages.


Bernice




Seems to me this question could be resolved if one has access to a camera with both focal plane and leaf shutter capability, which I do not have at this time. Something like a Speed Graphic, Pentax 67, etc. Expose a test film at 1/500 sec first through the leaf shutter and then another with the focal plane shutter while the leaf shutter was open, and then compare the two exposures.

[Vaughn]

I did a lot of aerial photography from small airplanes with 4X5 Technika, 4X5 Crown Graphic, 6X7 Rapid Omegas and 6X9 Fujifilm RFs. Most of this was black and white and color negative film, but I did do quite a bit of color transparency as well. I always used 1/500 sec. on these Compur, Copal and Seiko shutters and my exposures were accurate.

Exactly -- if one uses a specific range of shutter speeds consistently, then one is metering and developing with the accuracy of those speeds accounted for. That is the advantage of testing for personal film speed -- to account for errors in one's method, meter and shutter...not that I have ever done the testing...trial and error for me.

[Pere Casals]

Exactly -- if one uses a specific range of shutter speeds consistently, then one is metering and developing with the accuracy of those speeds accounted for.

This is true... but if we use several shutters then we have to recall how every speed works in each shutter.

In the present situation most shutters around are pretty old and often they have not been CLA serviced since long ago, so testing shutters may be interesting, in special for Velvia.


Fortunately today we have cheap testers solutions that are totally accurate. I tested this one bellow (owned by a friend) and it nails the Nikon F5 speeds. Nikon F5 is a good benchmark because its shutter has sensors inside to calculate the actual speed happened in every in every shot and system is always perfectly autocalibrated automatically. The simple ($15) spot sensor I have it delivers the same readings if used properly, but that $99 tester is quite convenient and good for everyone.

One the great satisfactions I found in owning a shutter tester is calibrating my (appreciate) Galli shutter :)

203226





If high shutter speeds are not needed, why did Graflex make 1/1000 possible on their cameras? The assumption that everyone shoots stopped down to F64, or that they don't want to capture action, is not supported by history.

Well... it is true that high speeds are not often used in "fine art" mainstream, but of course they can be used for interesting purposes.

[Vaughn]

This is true... but if we use several shutters then we have to recall how every speed works in each shutter...
Not really. If one uses each of their lenses to run tests for personal film speed, then each lens would have its own correction for the film ASA (ISO)...that is all one would need to remember. Again, this is assuming one always uses the same range of shutter speeds per lens (such as 1/500 for aerial photography, or always 1/15 to 1/60 for some reason.) If one lens is a stop slow in shutter speed -- the adjusted ASA of the film derived through testing for that lens will be doubled compared to a shutter that operates at the correct speed.

All just a thought exercise...I do not work this way. Way too much testing -- but experience certainly taught me to cut back a stop if using 1/125.

[Bob Salomon]

Neutral density filter can bring that shutter speed required from 1/100 sec to virtually any slower shutter speed needed at f3.8.

Possible adding a waterhouse stop will alter the lens image produced on film relative to full aperture of f3.8?

Graflex cameras with the 1/1000 capable focal plane shutters were designed to be hand-held mobile press cameras with 4x5 film. Stop-action with shutter speed IS important for hand held press images. Were these focal plane shutters consistent cycle to cycle at 1/1000 second over many thousands of cycles with the expectation of exposures to within 1/3 f-stop? There was a leaf shutter offered with 1/1000 second, was that leaf shutter reliable, repeatable, durable ( thousands of cycles, constant non-stop daily) at that shutter speed? As for focal plane shutters, they have a different set of trade offs and problems compared to leaf shutters.

No "free lunch" no ideal item to meet all image making needs.

Press images made using 4x5 press cameras resulted the companion six sheet Graflex 4x5 film back. These were all part of the common press camera image kit from a time when 4x5 sheet film was the primary means to press images. Consider why the common US military surplus 6" f2.8 Aero Ektar got used on quite a number of Graflex cameras. That said, these press cameras have specific advantages and limitations.



Bernice
There was more then one leaf shutter that shot at 1/1000. Some could only hit that speed at smaller apertures.
And then there was the Rollei linear motor shutter with carbon fiber blades, the PQS shuttered lenses for the 6008 and later model versions. It hit 1/1000 reliably at all apertures over very long periods of constant use at that speed.

Unfortunately Rollei was financially unable to continue their business and the PQS was only available in 0 and 1 sizes for MF. For large format both this shutter and the current Rodenstock/Sinar shutters can only get up to a 250th.

Linhof did make a rotary shutter for the 6x9cm AeroTronica that shot at speeds up to 1/1500 but had no slow speeds.

[Pere Casals]

Not really. If one uses each of their lenses to run tests for personal film speed, then each lens would have its own correction for the film ASA (ISO)...that is all one would need to remember. Again, this is assuming one always uses the same range of shutter speeds per lens (such as 1/500 for aerial photography, or always 1/15 to 1/60 for some reason.) If one lens is a stop slow in shutter speed -- the adjusted ASA of the film derived through testing for that lens will be doubled compared to a shutter that operates at the correct speed.

All just a thought exercise...I do not work this way. Way too much testing -- but experience certainly taught me to cut back a stop if using 1/125.

I guess that in general what you say is to work very well, at the end negative film has a lot of highlight latitude and by adding some exposure as safety factor we ensure perfect results. Perhaps exception is when a shutter has one or more speeds that are really faulty, or when we require top precision to nail slides.

One of my shutters had inconsistent speeds... with too much variability, anyway I guess that an experienced photographer detects that condition by simply listening the sound the shutter emites.

[Jody_S]

The whole point of using lenses wide-open these days is for the effect, not because we're sports or news photographers tying to stop action with fast shutter speeds. Not that lf can't do that, just that I'm pretty sure most sports and news photographers are now using digital, not their 1940s press cameras.

So you spend mega bucks buying, say, an f3.5 Xenar or Planar or whatever in shutter, you head out to your favorite stream or meadow or rock pile, or bribe your kid to sit for an outdoor portrait, and proceed to shoot the lens wide open, at top shutter speed. Your lens is no longer effectively wide open. What effect does this have on image, given that your effective aperture is 1) moving, 2) not circular?

I propose the following two tests, that require a few sheets of film, a fast lens in shutter, and an ND filter: shoot the same scene wide-open at 1/15s and 1/400 or whatever the shutter's top speed is. Shoot the proverbial ruler used to check focus, but in this instance for measuring depth of field, and shoot something with an OOF background with pinhole light sources. I expect the DoF will be increased using the shutter at max speed, negating the money you put into that fancy lens, and I expect OOF highlights will be very undefined but in some scenarios might be starfish-shaped?

The test could also be done with a Speed Graphic, using the same shutter speed on the leaf shutter and then with the lens open, using the roller-blind shutter. That might remove 1 variable for the OOF highlights (reflections off the ND filter). I'm not doing this myself for the very good reason that I don't own any fast lenses in shutter, unless you want to count a Verito in a non-working Studio shutter. The same effects will be present in slower lenses, but the demonstration will not be as interesting.

[JimboWalker]

I believe the faster speeds are optimistic as Mr. Crisp said. My Supermatics all run a stop slow at the fastest setting, even though the slower ones are dead on. I just received a Linhof Synchro-Compur shutter that Carol Miller at Flutot's CLA'd and the top two speeds are slow. I think it is the nature of the beast on large format shutters. As mentioned earlier, you generally never use speeds higher than 60th anyway. My exposures generally run much slower.

[grat]

I realize I'm being terribly simplistic, but to get an approximate idea of my shutter's calibration, I just put a USB microphone up to it, and recorded the various shutter sequences into Audacity, and measured the length between the clicks.

My faster speeds are within a few percentage points, but the 1s is "only" 0.860 seconds.

It doesn't give me ramps or photon counts, but at least I know whether or not 1/30th of a second is actually close to 1/30th of a second (it is).

And if I knew what to compare it with, I'd know how fast it opens and closes.

[Dan Fromm]

Jody, I've never noticed vignetting from my lenses in shutter. And I sometimes use high speeds. What am I doing wrong?

[Jody_S]

Jody, I've never noticed vignetting from my lenses in shutter. And I sometimes use high speeds. What am I doing wrong?

I think we've established already that center-mounted shutters in modern lenses will not cause vignetting, as they are at the optical node of the lens. However front and rear-mounted leaf shutters will cause a darkening of the extremities if used at speeds above 1/15 (per the Sinar sales brochure, most noticeable at speeds above 1/100), or on 'Instant' with a LUC-type shutter activated by a cable release. I believe Packard used their blade design to advantage because of this effect, with the top blade darkening the sky, and the side blades opening fastest along the middle third of the image to clear the horizon, leaving only dark corners at the lower right and left of the image. The weight of the top blade also helps close the shutter by gravity, of course.

That's what left me wondering what effect high shutter speeds have on lenses when used wide open, and my conclusion was that they would deepen depth of field (because the shutter blades are obstructing the light's path for virtually all of the exposure, leading to a reduced effective aperture for purposes of DoF, even if the total volume of light passed does correspond to the faceplate aperture and speed for exposure calculations) and possibly insert artifacts in OOF areas (because the shutter blades act as an aperture while opening and closing, and they do not form a circle but rather a starfish shape).

[Drew Wiley]

Things are getting fun (a bit of the usual food fight). Focal plane shutters have to be measured differently from leaf shutters, and so forth. Even the top speed of my Nikon FM2n is off. Not only the instrumentation says so, but densitometer-measured comparisons on the same roll of film. So I don't take anything for granted. Back when I shot a lot of color chromes, I'd note down anything deviating more than 1/6th stop. Relying on film "latitude" is a good way to ruin a shot. But all my own view camera lenses have very predictable shutters. If certain speeds are a tad off one way or the other, that seems to be the case year after year. I don't trust lenses that have lain around for many years unused, no matter how clean they look.

[Jody_S]

I don't trust lenses that have lain around for many years unused, no matter how clean they look.

Where's the fun in that? Half the lenses I use on a typical outing are either being used for the first time (by me), or I don't remember how they performed the last time I used them. But then obtaining a 'perfect' image isn't the main reason I go out shooting; it's the process I love. The discovery. When I want a perfect photo, I use my phone like a normal person.

[Drew Wiley]

Oh, the fun is the predictable back n' forth of conflicting opinions. It's just nice to see everyone still alive and ornery. Right now I'm salvage printing a number of early negs that were overexposed or whatever. But for many years now I've rarely goofed an exposure unless I neglected to use a magnifier or reading glasses with the meter or shutter dial. But I'm apparently not a normal person, because I don't know how to take a picture with a phone. It's hard enough to make a phone call with it. Yesterday our cellphones stopped working because my wife couldn't pay the bill because the DSL was down, but couldn't get that serviced without a phone call! Had to drive her clear out to her office on her day off to use the computer there. Speaking of hillbillies on another thread, where I'm from the only phone was about a mile away in a little store smaller than a mobile home, and it was a mahogany box with a crank on it. The operator was across the River in another county, and not a little river, but a deep uninhabited canyon. The first modern phone lines were strung by Cherokee work crews brought in from many states away, and the sons of a couple of them became good hiking pals of mine when I was around 16.

[GoodOldNorm]

As the detective "Columbo" would say, "just one more thing", when I tested my shutter speeds I fired the shutter 6 times at each speed and took an average. I noted that there was no appreciable difference from the first firing of the shutter to the sixth. From this I concluded that firing the shutter to "exercise" it made no difference to my readings.

[Pere Casals]

I noted that there was no appreciable difference from the first firing of the shutter to the sixth. From this I concluded that firing the shutter to "exercise" it made no difference to my readings.

A shutter that is is shape should fire perfectly from the the time, but here YMMV, it depends on the particular shutter, how it was lubricated and stored, and when, also even ambient temperature may have an influence on if first time it fires like the sixth.

I've (only) 7 shutters, one of them is a faulty Seiko that mofidies low speeds a lot after exercised, the other ones don't.

[GoodOldNorm]

A shutter that is is shape should fire perfectly from the the time, but here YMMV, it depends on the particular shutter, how it was lubricated and stored, and when, also even ambient temperature may have an influence on if first time it fires like the sixth.

I've (only) 7 shutters, one of them is a faulty Seiko that mofidies low speeds a lot after exercised, the other ones don't.
I store my shutters set on the B setting is this the correct thing to do?

[Pere Casals]

I store my shutters set on the B setting is this the correct thing to do?

This has been debated with some controversy. B position sure it's safe... Some shutter repair workshops have been recommending the B position as a general rule.

IMO for most "modern" shutters made in the last 4 decades it may be irrelevant the speed set for storage, at least there are no instructions from manufacturers and shutters came from factory in top speed position.

the shutters (old Compurs...) having a booster spring for the 400 speed loads an spring in the 400 position, so I avoid that setting for storage.

"We are the Rodenstock distributor. The factory sends the lenses to us uncocked, press focus closed, aperture at the largest opening and the shutter speed at the fastest shutter speed."

If springs are of good quality then nothing if lost is they are kept under tension, but anyway I would not keep the shutter cocked.

Also some very ancient shutters may tension some (low quality) spring depending on speed setting.

[Bernice Loui]

No "fooling" around, after burning countless sheets of film over decades of this view camera stuff there is not much "fun" in fooling around. It is all serious image making per sheet of film. If the view camera goes out to make images, there is a goal, no experimenting or sudden discoveries, no tolerance for camera limitations, comprehensive knowledge of what a given lens will and will not do-then used a chosen lens appropriately.

This mind-set can from a time when doing in-studio work with folks who made their daily eats and roof over their head by meeting client expectations for excellent work. There were no exceptions, either the work was excellent or you starve. Back then there was a support system to make it possible. Or where the expectations for what this view camera stuff must meet, anything less not gonna happen here. Today, no. Suspect this is why the dramatic change in folks who are doing view camera stuff today. Add to this view camera hardware is not difficult to obtain today.

That said, it's great to see folks tinkering with this view camera stuff. This is where the, "Figure out what works best for you comes from." But, there are those who have been there, done all that and know precisely what works for them and what does not and what is minutia not worth being overly concerned about.

IMO, sheet film B&W printed in a darkroom has no digital equal, but them are "Fight'n Words"..


Bernice




Where's the fun in that? Half the lenses I use on a typical outing are either being used for the first time (by me), or I don't remember how they performed the last time I used them. But then obtaining a 'perfect' image isn't the main reason I go out shooting; it's the process I love. The discovery. When I want a perfect photo, I use my phone like a normal person.

[Jody_S]

No "fooling" around, after burning countless sheets of film over decades of this view camera stuff there is not much "fun" in fooling around. It is all serious image making per sheet of film. If the view camera goes out to make images, there is a goal, no experimenting or sudden discoveries, no tolerance for camera limitations, comprehensive knowledge of what a given lens will and will not do-then used a chosen lens appropriately.

This mind-set can from a time when doing in-studio work with folks who made their daily eats and roof over their head by meeting client expectations for excellent work. There were no exceptions, either the work was excellent or you starve. Back then there was a support system to make it possible. Or where the expectations for what this view camera stuff must meet, anything less not gonna happen here. Today, no. Suspect this is why the dramatic change in folks who are doing view camera stuff today. Add to this view camera hardware is not difficult to obtain today.

That said, it's great to see folks tinkering with this view camera stuff. This is where the, "Figure out what works best for you comes from." But, there are those who have been there, done all that and know precisely what works for them and what does not and what is minutia not worth being overly concerned about.

IMO, sheet film B&W printed in a darkroom has no digital equal, but them are "Fight'n Words"..


Bernice


30 years ago there were a sizeable number of commercial photographers who earned a living doing large format work. I was not one of those. There were a lot more people losing money pretending to be in the stock photo business. I was one of those, though I never used lf for that as it was all a numbers game and you had to keep your costs to a bare minimum. Hence I got in the habit of buying and selling used gear to finance the stuff I couldn't afford to go to the store and buy new. Now the stock photo market disappeared with the Internet and unscrupulous stock agencies that vacuum up every image on the 'net and don't actually pay the photographers. This has led people like me to post very few images on the 'net, and never using commercial hosting sites as their terms of service pretty universally grant them ownership and the right to resell your images without compensating you. If you're not paying for a product, you are the product.

What remains, for people like me, is the business of buying and selling used gear to finance our personal photography, because that part still pays. The fact that I no longer sell a few dollars of photos from time to time simply means I don't have to bother with all the hard work of cataloguing and marketing my photos anymore (I rarely even print them), and I can shoot whatever the h- I want instead of trying to guess what buyers want. I like it better this way. A side effect of this model though is that I need to experiment with a relatively large number of lenses and cameras that pass through my hands, unless I want to sell everything as-is and 'untested'. It so happens that I enjoy doing this, and it motivates me to get out the in field on days where I might stay home instead. Do you know how a 'Polyopse' varifocal projection Petzval lens differs from a standard Petzval design? I'm about to find out.

I participated in this thread because I was considering buying one of the cheap shutter speed testers and I was wondering how useful it might be in practice. And it seems the answer is 'not very' (for leaf shutters), after reading the Sinar brochure and seeing actual numbers and a reference to the standard the shutters were built to. I can make a better shutter tester with a 3x3" bit of photovoltaic cell, flashlight, cardboard, and an oscilloscope, and some software to fit the resulting curve to a rectangle of equal height. If I had >$1M to burn, I could worry about integrating spheres, collimated light sources, integrating 'scopes, and optical test benches. The results would be so close to identical that outside of a nuclear physics lab the differences would be trivial. But my results would differ quite significantly from the $15 ebay shutter speed testers.

[Bernice Loui]

Having been around that kind of commercial work back in those days alters your ways, expectations of how Photography is done, once after being subjected to all that, it forever alters the way one does photography and how photography is done.

Indeed there was a significant market for stock Fotos back then, knew folks who did that in the SF bay area back then, most did not survive, most did it has a side interest. Once purchased some Canon 35mm stuff from a work sports photographer. He showed me his working Canon F1n, there was not one surface on that body that was not significantly dented, most of the paint was wore off or whacked off, yet it remained his working camera. He also did stock Fotos as a side interest.

What is surprising is the sheer number of folks that continue to wheel-deal Foto stuff. Another Foto friend paid for part of his med school wheeling-dealing Foto gear. There remains a significant amount to Foto hardware wheeling-dealing to this day.

Me, I've got more Foto stuff than could ever be needed, they are remains from decades past and impulse buying from a time when film related camera stuff was literally being ~dumped~ on the used market to be replaced by digital.

As for DIY shutter speed sensor and related to check shutter speed, been there done that. Designed-built this Photodiode transimpedance amplifier some time in the early 1990's to... check shutter speed. It's brute over kill as it has a rise-fall time about 50nS with a LOT of dynamic range.
203295

It is often used at the back side of a Sinar (aka integrating sphere Heh....). This plus a Tektronix 7834 analog storage O'scope with the proper set of plug-ins was the set up. That was the shutter speed checker set up back in the early 1990's. But for today's Foto-Op, here it is set up looking at the light output of a LED ring light magnifier on the Tek 7104, which is the O'scope used most often today.
203296

Virtually ANY constant light source works, as that is the least critical item in that test set up.


:)
Bernice




30 years ago there were a sizeable number of commercial photographers who earned a living doing large format work. I was not one of those. There were a lot more people losing money pretending to be in the stock photo business. I was one of those, though I never used lf for that as it was all a numbers game and you had to keep your costs to a bare minimum. Hence I got in the habit of buying and selling used gear to finance the stuff I couldn't afford to go to the store and buy new. Now the stock photo market disappeared with the Internet and unscrupulous stock agencies that vacuum up every image on the 'net and don't actually pay the photographers. This has led people like me to post very few images on the 'net, and never using commercial hosting sites as their terms of service pretty universally grant them ownership and the right to resell your images without compensating you. If you're not paying for a product, you are the product.

What remains, for people like me, is the business of buying and selling used gear to finance our personal photography, because that part still pays. The fact that I no longer sell a few dollars of photos from time to time simply means I don't have to bother with all the hard work of cataloguing and marketing my photos anymore, and I can shoot whatever the h- I want instead of trying to guess what buyers want. I like it better this way. A side effect of this model though is that I need to experiment with a relatively large number of lenses and cameras that pass through my hands, unless I want to sell everything as-is and 'untested'. It so happens that I enjoy doing this, and it motivates me to get out the in field on days where I might stay home instead.

I participated in this thread because I was considering buying one of the cheap shutter speed testers and I was wondering how useful it might be in practice. And it seems the answer is 'not very', after reading the Sinar brochure and seeing actual numbers and a reference to the standard the shutters were built to. I can make a better shutter tester with a 3x3" bit of photovoltaic cell, flashlight, and an oscilloscope, and some software to fit the resulting curve to a rectangle of equal height.

[Dan Fromm]

Jody, whether you should get a shutter speed tester depends on your shutters. I have a number of lenses in so-so shutters that are significantly off speed but still consistent. Since I shoot chromes they could hurt me if I didn't have a shutter speed tester. I don't have to test often. Once a year seems to be often enough, and then I carry the updated summary calibration sheet with me. My tester is a Calumet lookalike that I think came out of the same garage as Calumet's testers.

[Jody_S]

As for DIY shutter speed sensor and related to check shutter speed, been there done that. Designed-built this Photodiode transimpedance amplifier some time in the early 1990's to... check shutter speed. It's brute over kill as it has a rise-fall time about 50nS with a LOT of dynamic range.
203295

It is often used at the back side of a Sinar (aka integrating sphere Heh....). This plus a Tektronix 7834 analog storage O'scope with the proper set of plug-ins was the set up. That was the shutter speed checker set up back in the early 1990's.
Bernice


Nice! I figured that since I'm measuring time, not light, I don't need the amplifier, I can simply use a strong enough light source that the tail ends of the curve that don't get measured are negligible. The benefit of the large photovoltaic cell instead of a point sensor is that I can measure the entire field at once, including with a lens of any design, since the effective shutter speed will vary based on how much smaller the optical path is than the standard shutter opening.

If this was for use with rear-mounted shutters like the Sinar, I would also have to mask the photovoltaic cell to a size corresponding to the eventual film area, but then that's why you used a point sensor?

[Bernice Loui]

Suspect a plain Foot-Cell used in voltage out mode is plenty good enough. The edge rates with mechanical shutters is just NOT that high. Do use a decent 10X scope probe to reduce the capacitance loading at the Foto-Cell, this will help speedy up the Foot-Cell used in volts out mode.

It is really a simple set up. Flashlight is GOOD, battery powered means portable point it where needed with no 60Hz related components. Be aware many LED flashlights today have internal switching power supplies that will modulate the light output. This might or might not be an issue. Using a good-old fashioned "Edison" bulb flashlight gets this done.


Have fun :)
Bernice



Nice! I figured that since I'm measuring time, not light, I don't need the amplifier, I can simply use a strong enough light source that the tail ends of the curve that don't get measured are negligible. The benefit of the large photovoltaic cell instead of a point sensor is that I can measure the entire field at once, including with a lens of any design, since the effective shutter speed will vary based on how much smaller the optical path is than the standard shutter opening.

[Jody_S]

Jody, whether you should get a shutter speed tester depends on your shutters. I have a number of lenses in so-so shutters that are significantly off speed but still consistent. Since I shoot chromes they could hurt me if I didn't have a shutter speed tester. I don't have to test often. Once a year seems to be often enough, and then I carry the updated summary calibration sheet with me. My tester is a Calumet lookalike that I think came out of the same garage as Calumet's testers.

I shoot negs, and develop in cold water to exhaustion. Mostly because I scan instead of printing, and I didn't have a scanner that could adequately scan chromes (why I stopped shooting chromes). I have recently acquired a scanner that can do 4.0 dmax (apparently), if that works out I might get back into color. I have a Jobo thingy waiting for that day, but to be honest I see in B&W and see no advantage to going back to color at this time. Based on my workflow, there is very little gain to be made by calibrating my shutters, the speed tester was more for peace of mind.

[Jody_S]

Suspect a plain Foot-Cell used in voltage out mode is plenty good enough. The edge rates with mechanical shutters is just NOT that high. Do use a decent 10X scope probe to reduce the capacitance loading at the Foto-Cell, this will help speedy up the Foot-Cell used in volts out mode.

It is really a simple set up. Flashlight is GOOD, battery powered means portable point it where needed with no 60Hz related components. Be aware many LED flashlights today have internal switching power supplies that will modulate the light output. This might or might not be an issue. Using a good-old fashioned "Edison" bulb flashlight gets this done.


Have fun :)
Bernice

I figured the flashlight would be running PWM, but if that's running above 5 or 10K Hz the effect on my speed testing of a 1/200s shutter doesn't matter. Also, I suspect the PWM is only used to power the circuit internally from the battery, to maintain a constant bus voltage, not to actually drive the LEDs. That's why they blink when battery voltage is low. The only real advantage was that I can tape it into a cardboard tube without burning down my house. Also, I own one.

And a simple resistor across the photovoltaic cell should minimise capacitance effects.

[Bernice Loui]

This was the conclusion from all that futzing with shutter speed and all that back in the early 1990's. Absolute accuracy of a shutter and all that is of modest importance for doing outdoor stuff in B&W as the film, processing, printing had sufficient "tolerance" for modest shutter errors. Shutters should be consistent, reliable and accurate to their speed settings within reason.

If you're into producing absolute technically spot-on color transparencies, this should be done in-studio with GOOD strobe units, calibrated flash meter, color transparency film gray card (of the certified Kodak variety) tested processed at a GOOD-reliable E6 lab with the gray card test color transparency density checked using a calibrated color densitometer.


Bernice




Based on my workflow, there is very little gain to be made by calibrating my shutters, the speed tester was more for peace of mind.

[Drew Wiley]

I note the spread of several readings per speed, as well as the general deviation from nominal rated speed. I've been quite fortunate in that this too has been quite predictable with all my lenses, so small in fact that I don't have to worry about any of them except at the highest speeds. When I did mostly chrome work, I'd factor in anything 1/3 stop, but that was the worst any setting got. So now, when shooting color neg and b&w neg, I really don't worry at all. But over the long run, it is indeed important to periodically "exercise" lenses that might otherwise be completely neglected. Someone a couple weeks ago wanted me to look at a lens in Copal 3S from an estate sale that probably hadn't been handled in decades. Even though it was in clean condition, the low speeds were completely frozen, and most of the hypothetical profit selling it will disappear into a professional tuneup. It certainly wasn't a cult lens, but someone like me would have bought it just for the shutter itself if it didn't have a problem.

[Jody_S]

If you're into producing absolute technically spot-on color transparencies, this should be done in-studio with GOOD strobe units, calibrated flash meter, color transparency film gray card (of the certified Kodak variety) tested processed at a GOOD-reliable E6 lab with the gray card test color transparency density checked using a calibrated color densitometer.


Bernice


This is no longer possible. The film supply and labs do not exist, even if the technical knowledge to do so may live on for a few more years.

[Bernice Loui]

Correct, this is the primary reason why trying color transparencies today is iffy at best.

Beyond that the Cibachrome-Ilfordchrome-Fujichrome (they once made a print material for color transparencies) print process is essentially gone. Even if there are very few that continue on with their old stock of print materials and chemistry. Add to this, producing a GOOD print with this method is not simple, to do this proper required low contrast color transparencies to start, then contrast masking to aid in getting the print contrast rendition GOOD. These technical demands are FAR beyond most trying color print of this variety today. Those trying this today have no idea what is involved technically and all.

Digital color has become the common means to color prints today.




This is no longer possible. The film supply and labs do not exist, even if the technical knowledge to do so may live on for a few more years.

[Drew Wiley]

Yes, studio work with transparencies had to be well monitored and completely reliable. But do you really think it was any different for those of us doing mostly outdoor work, Bernice. Try lugging an 85 lb pack a week on end, hacking your way up a couple thousand feet of ice, and then tying yourself onto a ledge at 13,000 ft to get a dawn shot with a chrome. Do you think one can afford to gamble or bracket or guess exposure? And Jody, E6 films and excellent labs (plural) still exist. Even the new Kodak E100 chrome film showed up in this area in custom 8x10 cut prior to the virus closures. 4X5 is available, both Kodak and Fuji. It can still be processed send-in, but not walk-in for awhile longer. I don't know where your premature obituary of E6 comes from. Fuji dropped what I considered to be their finest chrome sheet films, while retaining others, but Kodak's has released arguably their best Ektachrome ever.

[LabRat]

This is no longer possible. The film supply and labs do not exist, even if the technical knowledge to do so may live on for a few more years.

Still possible, as there are neutral chrome films still available, and a few decent E6 labs, but mail order...

I rarely shoot LF color these days, but sometimes for small jobs when asked for, but prefer CN if possible, as I have looked at some old technically perfect chromes some time ago, and now see they typically have what I call "skinny top, big bottom" range, but the transition in the shadow area is smoother with CN normally... But CN papers now seem to wander into color crossover slightly easier these days, even with everything right...

And hate to say it, but even my older camera fone can capture more colors than come and gone certain films... I was shooting some Tibetan cloth with a strange gold color on someone's deepshade porch with my fone, and it captured it perfectly!!! Maybe 70's Agfachrome would have done a great job, but... ;-)

Steve K

[Drew Wiley]

I began transitioning to mainly CN film about 20 yrs ago, at exactly the right time, when both these films and RA4 papers were starting to significantly improve. And of course there was a bit of a learning curve. Doing commercial quality chromogenic printing was easy all along; but I had something better in mind. I skipped color printing this particular season due to the virus and not wanting any respiratory irritation at all from color chem exposure. But I had just finished another whole set of 8x10 internegatives made by contact from master dupes generated from complexly masked original 8x10 chromes. A lot of work up front, but the end result well worth it in terms of print quality otherwise unobtainable. You naysayers of what color film and paper can really do must have tunnel vision. Like anything quality, you don't get something for nothing. Good home cookin' takes work and commitment. It's a labor of love. Merely punching buttons won't get you there. And the best application for a cell phone is for skipping across a pond when you can't find a decent flat pebble.

[Bernice Loui]

Agfa Chrome RS100 was good, very good. Imported 13x18cm RS100 this from Germany back in the day. Burned many boxes of this stuff before Kodak improved ~significantly~ Ektachrome, it became VERY good in many ways. Then came IMO one of the best color transparency films made, Fuji Astia. It was short lived.
203299


Digital camera color rendition can be remarkable in many ways today, it is also a indicator of where the Scientific-Technical efforts have been put in imaging today. This is why most anything color is done digital today, it works, does good in many ways.

Yet, traditional silver gelatin B&W large format prints continue with their distinct print personality. Some highly value this, others not at all.


Bernice






And hate to say it, but even my older camera fone can capture more colors than come and gone certain films... I was shooting some Tibetan cloth with a strange gold color on someone's deepshade porch with my fone, and it captured it perfectly!!! Maybe 70's Agfachrome would have done a great job, but... ;-)

Steve K

[Corran]

While folks yammer away online about the impossibility of shooting E-6 properly, there are, right now, many people making a living shooting chromes and selling prints from scanned film. Ben Horne, Alex Burke, and Justin Lowery are just a few of the folks working with LF color transparencies (and negatives) out in the wild and somehow they get along just fine. Heck, take a look at Pali's work here on the forum, as well as others.

Many of these folks develop their own film.

What was expected for, say, shooting catalog work decades ago is mostly irrelevant to the film photography world in 2020.

[Bernice Loui]

Yep, how does one get those who have never seen ~GOOD~ color prints to fully understand and appreciate this..


Bernice



I began transitioning to mainly CN film about 20 yrs ago, at exactly the right time, when both these films and RA4 papers were starting to significantly improve. And of course there was a bit of a learning curve. Doing commercial quality chromogenic printing was easy all along; but I had something better in mind. I skipped color printing this particular season due to the virus and not wanting any respiratory irritation at all from color chem exposure. But I had just finished another whole set of 8x10 internegatives made by contact from master dupes generated from complexly masked original 8x10 chromes. A lot of work up front, but the end result well worth it in terms of print quality otherwise unobtainable. You naysayers of what color film and paper can really do must have tunnel vision. Like anything quality, you don't get something for nothing. Good home cookin' takes work and commitment. It's a labor of love. Merely punching buttons won't get you there. And the best application for a cell phone is for skipping across a pond when you can't find a decent flat pebble.

[Bernice Loui]

Catalog color transparency work is not that demanding, its more MASS quantity production, get it did...

Color transparency work back then for big Ad stuff was not the same.

Took a quick look at the work of those photographers noted, they are landscape color, which significant color demands might not be that extreme as the metric of reference is ~what~?

Point being, color landscapes is for color effect, not always accuracy of color and other technical demands.

Yes, it is a different world for film based color today, so has the expectations of what color prints are today.

There are those from the oldy-moldy past that remember how different this color stuff once was.


Bernice




While folks yammer away online about the impossibility of shooting E-6 properly, there are, right now, many people making a living shooting chromes and selling prints from scanned film. Ben Horne, Alex Burke, and Justin Lowery are just a few of the folks working with LF color transparencies (and negatives) out in the wild and somehow they get along just fine. Heck, take a look at Pali's work here on the forum, as well as others.

Many of these folks develop their own film.

What was expected for, say, shooting catalog work decades ago is mostly irrelevant to the film photography world in 2020.

[LabRat]

I was thinking of the Agfachrome that came in the orange boxes... I totally used the 100RS for 35mm as it was MUCH sharper, had great greens and other neutral colors, but had a devil of a time getting it in 4X5 for my commercial work... So had to settle for EK6117 as it was so neutral... But the Kodak films always seemed to have a biased color palette that I got bored of... But very neutral in good processing...

Steve K

[Drew Wiley]

Not all studio still work was what you contemptuous call mere "catalog" work. Some of it was very high cost, high income production, and still is. The transition to digital was not at first a quality upgrade whatsoever, and rather, a bit of a disappointment. That of course improved. But the motivation in the first place to take the wild investment, which initially could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars, all on equipment now totally obsolete, is that nearly the entire art department could be dismissed, and that justified the amortization of new equipment. All they now need is a set designer, a cameramen, and someone almost instantly doing the pre-press steps right there on a screen. Food photography is a little more involved, but essentially the same idea. Even much of the same camera equipment is used, with digital backs replacing film backs, and shorter lenses and bellows of course. If anything, the quality still looks a little behind what was once done with film in the hands of an expert. But the gain has been made in efficiency. In commercial applications, everyone wants everything today yesterday already.

[LabRat]

Yep, how does one get those who have never seen ~GOOD~ color prints to fully understand and appreciate this..


Bernice

Yea!!!! The last really good color I managed to print myself involved bringing a Leitz 1c condenser 35mm enlarger with a converted colorhead to the lab where I worked to feed the Fuji Commercial (punchy color) paper to feed into the RA/4 processor... The CN'S printed looking like 1st gen Cibas with colors you can (yummy) eat... Then Fuji discontinued the type P (portrait softer color) and type C (commercial) punchy color and brought out a paper that was supposed to do both at the same time, but it looked weird to me and a crossover would usually come up... Then the processor went bye bye, so ended my Type C printing... (I can't bring myself to going back to drums after feeding a test strip into the mouth of the beast, then 5 mins of my life waiting for that strip to come out...) I like that B/W keeps one involved through the entire processing interval...

[LabRat]

Not all studio still work was what you contemptuous call mere "catalog" work. Some of it was very high cost, high income production, and still is. The transition to digital was not at first a quality upgrade whatsoever, and rather, a bit of a disappointment. That of course improved. But the motivation in the first place to take the wild investment, which initially could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars, all on equipment now totally obsolete, is that nearly the entire art department could be dismissed, and that justified the amortization of new equipment. All they now need is a set designer, a cameramen, and someone almost instantly doing the pre-press steps right there on a screen. Food photography is a little more involved, but essentially the same idea. Even much of the same camera equipment is used, with digital backs replacing film backs, and shorter lenses and bellows of course. If anything, the quality still looks a little behind what was once done with film in the hands of an expert. But the gain has been made in efficiency. In commercial applications, everyone wants everything today yesterday already.

And now the client can watch the camera vision on a monitor from the sidelines, and nit-pik you to "do this, do that"... NOT interested, thank you... :-(

Steve K

[Jody_S]

Oh dear, I may have derailed a rather pointless discussion on shutter speeds and it's turned into an equally pointless discussion on 1990s commercial product photography, from my contention that the film & related products supply no longer exists, nor do the commercial labs that will process to 1990s standards.

For those who still print from color slides, how fresh are your chemicals and paper and can you guarantee absolutely equal tone and color rendition should you reprint the same slide 20 years from now? Can you reproduce a shot you took in the 90s and have the 2 chromes be indistinguishable to the trained eye? If the answer is 'no', then the supply required for professional product photography no longer exists. Even if we still have chromes and labs that will do your landscape shots.

[LabRat]

Oh dear, I may have derailed a rather pointless discussion on shutter speeds and it's turned into an equally pointless discussion on 1990s commercial product photography, from my contention that the film & related products supply no longer exists, nor do the commercial labs that will process to 1990s standards.

For those who still print from color slides, how fresh are your chemicals and paper and can you guarantee absolutely equal tone and color rendition should you reprint the same slide 20 years from now? Can you reproduce a shot you took in the 90s and have the 2 chromes be indistinguishable to the trained eye? If the answer is 'no', then the supply required for professional product photography no longer exists. Even if we still have chromes and labs that will do your landscape shots.

Actually, It might be a useful primer to this century, as the film makers were under scrutiny by the pros who were very picky about getting consistent perfect results (which required a high level of QA), and this filtered down to happy consumer levels, so a win/win for all...

As far as printing today, the Type R materials are gone, but now with scanning, it has become the destination for materials...

One side I noticed is old sheet film chromes seem to look a little different now, but some I looked at are not fading lighter, but some seem a little darker now (???), but with PS should be no problem...

It's a new world now, but good the "old world" had such high standards...

[Drew Wiley]

Scanning certainly isn't my destination, and Type R never was, and I have higher expectations than ever. Current color film and paper quality itself is not disappointing these higher expectations. There might not be quite as broad a selection as before, but what remains includes some very good products. Consumer expectations have always been mediocre. And if the ease of digital imaging has democratized color photography, serious printmakers remain a minority just like they have always been. The computer screen and desktop printer have largely replaced the corner drugstore photo counter, but that fact has very little to do with what can still be done in a color darkroom or thoughtful workstation by dedicated individuals. Even dye transfer printing has been commercially revived and is available if you are willing to pay for it. I've proven that it's possible to make internegatives from chromes of higher quality than ever - maybe not quite as simply, but better. The enemy is sheer laziness, not the lack of materials. Good color printers have always needed a mindset of doing some extra work, no matter what the specific medium, and I doubt that fact will ever change.

[Drew Wiley]

Jody - if all I could do was match 90's commercial standards, what would be the point? You're making easy things sound hard, when they aren't. It just takes some commitment. I saw an old 1940's Kodak Dye Transfer advertisement that told people how easy it now was to make their own home color prints. Everything is relative. Then Ciba made things ten times easier, but was still somewhat pricey, needed masking, and had certain idiosyncrasies. I got good prints the first day I tried it, and was making collectable prints within six months. But now people whine and gripe how hard it is to make a mask, but they're willing to spend endless hours sitting on their butt attempting to clean up and doctor things in PS. And by the way, we don't call them slides, but chromes, unless it's 35mm in a slide mount. And yes, old chromes can be printed any number of ways. If they've faded or gotten mildewed, of course there will be restoration issues. I've seen 1940's 5x7 Kodachromes that look like they were made yesterday. In the past year or so I've reprinted 4x5 chromes from the 70's via internegs to very high quality standards. I've done 35mm slides considerably older than that, and some of my brother's 4x5 chromes from the early 60's. No problem unless the original is somehow blemished. I neither scan nor use PS. It's all darkroom.

[Bob Salomon]

Jody - if all I could do was match 90's commercial standards, what would be the point? You're making easy things sound hard, when they aren't. It just takes some commitment. I saw an old 1940's Kodak Dye Transfer advertisement that told people how easy it now was to make their own home color prints. Everything is relative. Then Ciba made things ten times easier, but was still somewhat pricey, needed masking, and had certain idiosyncrasies. I got good prints the first day I tried it, and was making collectable prints within six months. But now people whine and gripe how hard it is to make a mask, but they're willing to spend endless hours sitting on their butt attempting to clean up and doctor things in PS. And by the way, we don't call them slides, but chromes, unless it's 35mm in a slide mount. And yes, old chromes can be printed any number of ways. If they've faded or gotten mildewed, of course there will be restoration issues. I've seen 1940's 5x7 Kodachromes that look like they were made yesterday. In the past year or so I've reprinted 4x5 chromes from the 70's via internegs to very high quality standards. I've done 35mm slides considerably older than that, and some of my brother's 4x5 chromes from the early 60's. No problem unless the original is somehow blemished. I neither scan nor use PS. It's all darkroom.

Ciba didn’t just have “idiosyncrasies” it could suffocate you!

I Was an Agnecolor rep way back when and had the 16x20 processor. The first part of the processing was a piece of cake. But once you opened the cover- WOW!!

[Jody_S]

The relevancy about slide, er, chrome film was simply that we no longer live in a world where having your exposure be off by 1/6th of a stop will get you fired from your day job (apologies to anyone here who actually would be). That's not a justification for sloppy technique or laziness, simply that the questions that require an elaborate shutter speed tester to answer are no longer relevant. In large format still photography.

I have a healthy respect for printmakers, I was blessed enough to work with one for a few years in the '90s. Until I discovered he was running a stock agency out the back room and had been selling my images without my knowledge or consent. But I digress. He was still an artist and I have never been, nor will I ever be, able to match what he could do in a darkroom. I won't even try; if I'm going to invest years of my time mastering printmaking skills, it will be on Photoshop working with a professional printing outfit for the final form. Because no one wants to see (much less purchase) a physical print of any of my photos, so if I bought all the gear and made 5,000 prints while learning, all of that would just end up in a dumpster one day when I die. Whereas I'm halfway there to being competent at Photoshop, and I already own the equipment to go that route. I simply lack the motivation to perfect that part of my imagemaking skills at this point in my life. I already spend enough time sitting at a desk, it's more fun to trudge through a swamp hauling 50lbs of gear. And I've always hated darkroom work, I often leave negs in holders for months before developing.

[Drew Wiley]

I understand. I spent enough time with a keyboard before I retired, compared to just a little now, like at the moment. The tactility of darkroom work appeals a lot more to me personally. But I get out with the backpack regularly too, in snowmelt muck sometimes, but no swamps per se around here.

[Pere Casals]

The relevancy about slide, er, chrome film was simply that we no longer live in a world where having your exposure be off by 1/6th of a stop will get you fired from your day job (apologies to anyone here who actually would be). That's not a justification for sloppy technique or laziness, simply that the questions that require an elaborate shutter speed tester to answer are no longer relevant. In large format still photography.


IMO, a personal shutter tester not only serves to measure the real speeds... I guess shutter consistency is also a very interesting concept with our old and sometimes beaten shutters. Many of our shutters are quite old an many had not seen a CLA for decades. A major concern is to see if effective speed is exactly repeated shot after shot, if speed varies after it is exercised... if what changes is the opening ramp or the closing ramp...

Some times a shutters is ver inconsistent in the very low speeds but still very good at 1/20. Fortunately inconsitence in the low speeds are easy to percive with no tester, but at 1/20 it's not that easy. My view in that in many scenes a 1 stop error can be tolerated, but for challenging scenes better if we have 1/3 stop precision.

[LabRat]

Not with chromes, Pere... On a large even white background, 2/10th of a stop stands out...

Steve K

[B.S.Kumar]

I already spend enough time sitting at a desk, it's more fun to trudge through a swamp hauling 50lbs of gear. And I've always hated darkroom work, I often leave negs in holders for months before developing.

I do that (not through a swamp, but over hill and dale), except that I use a Betterlight scanning back. All the fun of LF photography, no darkroom work, and I do very little Photoshop, except for a couple of layers.

Kumar

[Bernice Loui]

One of the ways this was done back then. After hours and hours of in studio set up. A set of exposures were made on known-tested color transparency film (typically six or so sheets) absolute identical. Take the sheets to the local E6 lab, order process normal, then ya wait. Once the processed film was done, look at sheet one VERY carefully on the color correct light table. If ALL is ok, run the rest at the E6 labs normal processing. Feel luck and celebrate :)

If not, ask the lab to push-pull one or two tenths f-stop and repeat. ~If you're at push-pull more than 2/3 f-stop, you're in trouble.

The in studio set up MUST remain untouched while all this was happening in case something serious needs to be changed or tweaked or if ya run out of exposed film to lab-process. This is where the not so fun struggle begins.

Yes, 2/10 of a f-stop on E6 DOES make a difference. This is one of the reasons why accuracy, consistency and reliability of BIG studio strobes was SO important back in those days.



Bernice



Not with chromes, Pere... On a large even white background, 2/10th of a stop stands out...

Steve K

[Drew Wiley]

Current generation chrome films pull very poorly. It's not like Ektachrome 64 days or Fuji Provia I and II. But there was always a penalty to pulling much anyway, typically in terms of highlight crossover risk. I never did it unless I was deliberately trying to tempt some crossover effect for creative reasons. Most color photographers don't even know what an accurate light table is. It takes a good color temp meter just to determine that, versus misleading marketing claims.

[Alan Klein]

This is true... but if we use several shutters then we have to recall how every speed works in each shutter.

In the present situation most shutters around are pretty old and often they have not been CLA serviced since long ago, so testing shutters may be interesting, in special for Velvia.


Fortunately today we have cheap testers solutions that are totally accurate. I tested this one bellow (owned by a friend) and it nails the Nikon F5 speeds. Nikon F5 is a good benchmark because its shutter has sensors inside to calculate the actual speed happened in every in every shot and system is always perfectly autocalibrated automatically. The simple ($15) spot sensor I have it delivers the same readings if used properly, but that $99 tester is quite convenient and good for everyone.

One the great satisfactions I found in owning a shutter tester is calibrating my (appreciate) Galli shutter :)

203226





Well... it is true that high speeds are not often used in "fine art" mainstream, but of course they can be used for interesting purposes.

Pere: How does it work? Is it using light through the shutter or sound? Or something else?

[Bernice Loui]

Yep, this is why nailing the exposure first try is SO important. Once you're at lab push-pull, it is much about tweak saving with not a lot of margin.


Bernice


Current generation chrome films pull very poorly. It's not like Ektachrome 64 days or Fuji Provia I and II. But there was always a penalty to pulling much anyway, typically in terms of highlight crossover risk. I never did it unless I was deliberately trying to tempt some crossover effect for creative reasons. Most color photographers don't even know what an accurate light table is. It takes a good color temp meter just to determine that, versus misleading marketing claims.

[Alan Klein]

The whole point of using lenses wide-open these days is for the effect, not because we're sports or news photographers tying to stop action with fast shutter speeds. Not that lf can't do that, just that I'm pretty sure most sports and news photographers are now using digital, not their 1940s press cameras.

So you spend mega bucks buying, say, an f3.5 Xenar or Planar or whatever in shutter, you head out to your favorite stream or meadow or rock pile, or bribe your kid to sit for an outdoor portrait, and proceed to shoot the lens wide open, at top shutter speed. Your lens is no longer effectively wide open. What effect does this have on image, given that your effective aperture is 1) moving, 2) not circular?

I propose the following two tests, that require a few sheets of film, a fast lens in shutter, and an ND filter: shoot the same scene wide-open at 1/15s and 1/400 or whatever the shutter's top speed is. Shoot the proverbial ruler used to check focus, but in this instance for measuring depth of field, and shoot something with an OOF background with pinhole light sources. I expect the DoF will be increased using the shutter at max speed, negating the money you put into that fancy lens, and I expect OOF highlights will be very undefined but in some scenarios might be starfish-shaped?

The test could also be done with a Speed Graphic, using the same shutter speed on the leaf shutter and then with the lens open, using the roller-blind shutter. That might remove 1 variable for the OOF highlights (reflections off the ND filter). I'm not doing this myself for the very good reason that I don't own any fast lenses in shutter, unless you want to count a Verito in a non-working Studio shutter. The same effects will be present in slower lenses, but the demonstration will not be as interesting.

Wider lenses give more light through the viewfinder or ground glass to see the subject, even if the camera stops down when your shoot the shot. Also, with slow film, at least on 35mm, you're able to capture shots that would be blurry otherwise due to slower shutter speeds. Of course today, with digital, those big open heavy lenses are not necessary due to higher ISO settings and display views that compensate for low light electronically. The DOF aadvantage is overplayed unless you want 1" of DOF on a portrait . Then everything is blurry eside the person's eyeball.

[Alan Klein]

Jody, I've never noticed vignetting from my lenses in shutter. And I sometimes use high speeds. What am I doing wrong?

How can you get vignetting? That means at smaller f stops, you'll also get vignetting which doesn't happen. The lens is designed to avoid that.

[Pere Casals]

Not with chromes, Pere... On a large even white background, 2/10th of a stop stands out...

Steve K

Of course, with chromes we need all precision we can get. But meters themselves have a 1/6 stop variability, depending on brand, beyond spectral sensitivity differences. I found that with slides best is learning from bracketings while spot metering different subjects, many meters underrate blue so sky tends to be more overexposed than spot meter says.

[Pere Casals]

Pere: How does it work? Is it using light through the shutter or sound? Or something else?

Hello Alan

Yes, it works. Those sensors do include a photocell (photoresistor, photodiode or phototransistor), then don't take sound but light.

There is some confusion because those sensors are plugged in the audio input of a PC or of an smartphone. Usually audio inputs have a capacitor in series to remove DC so when you record the photocell signal with Audacity audio recorder-editor (freeware) you may see a weird signal, still you see the opening/closing flanges and you can calculate speed, the exposure interval is seen in the Audacity audio editor, on in the smartphone App.


Me, I use a sensor and a USB oscilloscope (Picoscope brand) that shows a clean signal, knowing if the it is the opening or the closing ramp, or both, gives a clue of what it has to be fixed. Last fix I made was removing oil that reached the blades of a compur, blades were looking clean, but the erratic oily behaviour in the ramps made me suspect that problem, so I let fall some ether drops on the blades and after firing reveral times I removed ether with a cloth and extreme care: the cloth get black !!! after repeating that several times the shutter performed like new since then. Probably at Flutot's they see that at first sight, but viewing the ramps was useful to me, I saved openning tha shuter and probably destroying it :)


If you don't like electronics then best is purchasing the standalone version ($84) that delivers the readings in its own screen. IMO those readings are pretty accurate.



Ciba didn’t just have “idiosyncrasies” it could suffocate you!

I Was an Agnecolor rep way back when and had the 16x20 processor. The first part of the processing was a piece of cake. But once you opened the cover- WOW!!

Ciba is still alive, at least one man (of a kind) still stands in the trench serving a 16-pounder, we all know who is.

[Alan Klein]

I note the spread of several readings per speed, as well as the general deviation from nominal rated speed. I've been quite fortunate in that this too has been quite predictable with all my lenses, so small in fact that I don't have to worry about any of them except at the highest speeds. When I did mostly chrome work, I'd factor in anything 1/3 stop, but that was the worst any setting got. So now, when shooting color neg and b&w neg, I really don't worry at all. But over the long run, it is indeed important to periodically "exercise" lenses that might otherwise be completely neglected. Someone a couple weeks ago wanted me to look at a lens in Copal 3S from an estate sale that probably hadn't been handled in decades. Even though it was in clean condition, the low speeds were completely frozen, and most of the hypothetical profit selling it will disappear into a professional tuneup. It certainly wasn't a cult lens, but someone like me would have bought it just for the shutter itself if it didn't have a problem.

As you know Drew, I just started shooting 4x5. My first lens I bought from Japan was a Schneider 150mm Symmar. So I checked it with my phone recording the sound and then viewing it with a program that I could check the speed. It worked up to about 1/125 generally. But the signal becomes very chopped at faster speeds. So it's hard to check it.

So the first time I checked, most of the speeds were fast by 1/3 of a stop up to 1/30. Then I dropped the lens from about 6 feet high right onto my garage's concrete floor. Smack!. I thought it was all over. So I checked the lens and it looked OK. Then re-checked the shutter. It got more accurate! See the summary below. The numbers on the right were from the first test before I dropped it.

The second photo is a the wave chart using Audacity program that examines the waveform for a 1/8 second. The time .101 seconds is circled.

As an aside, I check two other lenses for large format and they were more accurate. I also check a Nikon N6006 35mm film camera from 30 years ago. It was on the money. Exact. Must be an electronic shutter.

[Alan Klein]

Here's a test for a 90mm Nikkor f 4.5 large format. Shutter is very accurate.

[Alan Klein]

Last one. Fujinon 75mm f 5.6 large format 4x5
Some speeds were right on. Others maybe 1/6 stop too fast like the 150mmm Schneider. But overall pretty accurate.

[Joseph Kashi]

FWIW - I just reviewed the late 2019 speed test data that I have for the 30 lenses in shutter that I have in various 4x5, 5x7, and 11x14 kits. I did these tests so that I could put together a set of laminated field-use index cards with true speeds for each lens.

The tested lenses include multiple examples of Compur 0 an d 1, older and also more recent Copal 0,1, and 3, Ilex Acme 3 and 4, Rapax 0 and 1, Seiko O, multliple sizes of Compounds, and single examples of Prontor 1, Compur 2, Kodak Supermatic 1, and Volute on the 12" Protar VIIa set.

About 85% +/- seem to be factory OEM mounts. These shutters mount a wide variety of modern Rodenstock, Nikko, Schneider, and Fujinon optics and a total of 8 earlier 30s Protars VIIa and 50s-60s US-made Dagors and Ektars. Probably a pretty decent range of ages, optics and shutters overall.

The only firm conclusion is that in 90% of these shutters, including those with very recent Grimes and Flutot CLA, the fastest speed is almost always 1/2 to 1.5 stops slower than marked, with the next fastest speed usually 1/2 to 1 stop slower than marked. On smaller size 0 and 1 shutters, speeds up to 1/125 are usually reasonably close to marked speeds, though typically off somewhat.

Luckily, at f22-32 with ISO 100 film, those accurate slower shutter speeds are the ones that we will most likely use with everything but a hand-held Speed Graphic, etc.,, even in bright sunshine. So as long as the true speed is known and used in determining the aperture to use, it's all OK.

How tested: I have tested all of these shutters at all speeds multiple times with my Calumet shutter speed tester under repeatable conditions with the same light source to be sure that I was not recording outlier results. Most shutters at slower speeds were repeatable within a tight band.

At least a third of these lenses have had recent CLA by Carol Flutot and Grimes, who both also provided a chart of tested speeds for each CLA shutter. The fastest two marked speeds for lenses that have a recent CLA were not reliably closer to marked than non-CLA lenses. No brand was reliably closer to marked speeds at the fastest shutter speeds. Age did not make a discernible difference if the shutter was reasonably clean. Older Compounds mounting 145-183mm Protars were at least as accurate as newer Copals.

The Flutot-Grimes post-CLA test results and the results of my shutter speed tests made after CLA agreed closely, indicating that my own Calumet shutter speed tester was providing reliable results for the lenses that were not recent CLA.

Conclusion: About 90% of those 30 tested shutters, of every brand, age, and size, were 1/2 to 1.5 stops slower than marked at the two highest marked speeds.

Testing every shutter and the using the actual tested speeds seems necessary where exposure is critical, as in chromes.

This isn't any different than the practical use film-based Zone System tests that were the norm mid-20th Century, except that we can now do this electronically without wasting a lot of film.

[Pere Casals]

Excellent report