shutter testing

[doc]

i find i now have a collection of used lenses in shutters, shutters which are de cades old, and who knows how accurate they are??? once, i saw this guy at used c amera store testing a shutter with a device that looked home made, and it used a strong light bulb as a component. and he could plug this thing into a wall sock et, sit the lens under the lamp and fire the shutter and tell what speed the shu tter was firing. do any of you know what devices for testing shutters are avalib le and/or how one would find such a device? thanks

[David Grandy]

Each year I take all of my LF lenses into a camera repair shop to have the shutters tested. I get a printout of each lens's actual shutterspeed for each marked shutterspeed. I put all of these actual/indicated shutterspeeds into the computer and come up with one cheat sheet that I print and laminate.

It's accurate and cheap since it only costs me $5 per lens to do this; so I think that it's not worth the time or effort to do it myself.

[Dick Streff]

If you are willing to invest a small amount of time into building your own shutter tester and have access to a PC you can follow the instructions outlined at:

http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/2131/shspeed.html

I use the same basic setup on a Macintosh by using the shareware program d-Soundpro, but other similiar programs could be used.

I've also built a box to hold the electronics that allows me to test my lenses while mounted on the lensboards.

For an off the shelf solution, I believe the Calumet tester lists under $125.