shutter speed test

[Joseph O'Neil]

Cannot find the answer to this one.

I want to test the speed of an old, packard style shutter. I bought it used off the forum, repaired it myself -very simple mechanism inside, mostly it just needed a good cleaning - and I find I can to a small degree control the shutter speed by how fast I squeeze the air bulb.

So as you can see, very low tech here, so nothing I want to send off for formal testing. See the pictures attached below. Don't want to build anything or buy a shutter tester just for this project, so any ideas, short of wasting a few sheets of film?

:)

[C. D. Keth]

I would build a shutter tester. They're very quick, easy, and cheap to build, and useful to have around long after you've got the hang of the packard.

If you don't want to do that, you can judge it fairly closely by ear by comparing the sound to that of a SLR that works properly. Just fire the SLR several times to get the sound of it in your head and then try to match it.

[Nathan Potter]

I'm making a wild stab here but:::::

Could you use a cheap digital camera in some fashion. Say open the lens (if possible) and use your packard for exposure. Then back out what the shutter speed is at a particular aperture on the digital. Or some scheme such as that.

Nate Potter, Boston MA.

[JBrunner]

As long as you are squeezing hard enough, you are at 1/20 give or take. Once you've seen that a few times, you can extrapolate pretty easily.