Packard Shutters

[Diane Maher]

What is the speed of the Packard shutter? Is it always the same speed? What about when using it with flash? Just curious.

[wfwhitaker]

Bulb, normally. Squeeze to open, release to close. Many of the Packards allow a pin to be inserted which modifies the action so that the shutter opens and closes on one stroke of the piston. It's around 1/25 second, depending on the air pressure. You can adjust it somewhat by how vigorously you squeeze the bulb. A few Packards have two cylinders, one for bulb, one for "instant". The end result is the same. If your Packard is a sync'd version, the switch is closed when the shutter is wide open. So it's sync'd at all speeds even though there aren't many of them.

[Gene McCluney]

The normal packard shutter is synced "X"..that is flash is triggered when the shutter is fully open, and generally, if adjusted correctly will only trigger the flash when the shutter "pin" is inserted to facilitate "instantaneous" exposures, which, as stated above hover around 1/25 of a second. The smaller shutters will be a little faster, the bigger shutters may be a little slower, given the same clean conditions.

[Jim Noel]

The #6 Packard has the pin for "Instantaneous" exposures. This varies from about 1/15 -1/30 second depending on the size of the opening. The synch is "X" for strobes. But since the shutter is open so long it also works with bulbs.
The #5 is "B" only.
They are still available new but I do not have the link at hand at the moment.

[Neil Purling]

What sort of sizes of packard shutter can you get? Are we talking about something quite large?

[Nick_3536]

Don't know what's available new but depending on what you call large I'd say yup pretty large.

[Nick_3536]

http://www.packardshutter.com/

3.5" opening seems a stock item. Bigger is custom.

[Dave_B]

I just got one from Midwest that was 4 1/2 inches square with a clear aperture of 2 1/4 inches for a quite good price. You may want to check there as well.
Cheers,
Dave B.

[Diane Maher]

So, how do you focus when one of these shutters is in place behind the lens? Hold it open with pressure on the bulb or remove it then replace it?

[Nick_3536]

You open the shutter.

[Vick Vickery]

Diane, when you open the shutter without using the instantanious pin the shutter will stay open if you just hold it open with pressure on the bulb then take your finger off the air hole in the end of the bulb; to close it again, block the air hole and pump the bulb again.

[Neil Purling]

I wondered if you could get one of these to fit to a Linhof Technika lens panel and use it with my Petzval.

[Gene McCluney]

I wondered if you could get one of these to fit to a Linhof Technika lens panel and use it with my Petzval.

There possibly are very small packard shutters that would fit inside a Technika panel, ,but to use a "bigish" Petzval, your best bet is to consider adapting a bigger Packard shutter to fit externally on the front of the lens being used. I believe Ash has put together a "how-to" showing how he did this. If you found a Packard shutter that is small enough to fit inside a Technika lens board, the opening would probably be too small for full realization of the Petzval cone of light.