Shutter Speed Tester

[Tin Can]

DIY Arduino Camera Shutter Speed Tester. HOW TO, less than $10!

Just found this, not tested by me

https://youtu.be/UwOh3da_Y8s

[r.e.]

You might want to read the comments on that video, especially one by someone named Luigi.

[Tin Can]

I did

did you readon?

I don't need it as I have an older version that is no longer supported on newer IOS

but I have a iPod it works on

You might want to read the comments on that video, especially one by someone named Luigi.

[Nigel Smith]

I made one and added a LCD screen to make it stand-a-lone, although I need a couple of 'somethings' to hold the sensor and laser in place/alignment as being on the end of cables coming from the other direction, they want to twist around.

I have found it can't read higher speeds but hadn't thought about the code other than adding to it to display the results on the LCD. I might have another look at it having read the comments on the video.

[tomwilliams]

Another DIYer here, I built a shutter timer based on a snippet of code I found on the web for an Arduino Uno. I used a photo-transistor emitter/receiver pair for the detector. Between the housing for the electronics, the Arduino Uno R4, a 16x2 LCD, a photo-transistor pair, a 9V power supply, and shipping, the total cost was well over $20, even with cheap chinese power supply and LCD.

I've checked the timer repeatedly for consistency, with good results. Accuracy is another matter: without a calibrated external meter check I don't think I can make any reliable claims about accuracy. I have noticed that at speeds above 1/60 seconds, my measured speeds begin to fall off fairly dramatically from the dial speeds. This is as expected, from what I've gathered in various LFP forums, but that doesn't eliminate the possibility of a systematic error in measurement. In my field log I keep a table of measured shutter speeds for each of my lenses, and I use the measured speeds to adjust f-stop and shutter speed for every photo. So far so good, though my photographs are too inconsistent to reliably assign a 1/2-1 stop error in exposure to the shutter speed alone.

At shutter settings over one second the timer fails to take a reading, for reasons I haven't investigated yet. At one second, the timer doesn't always take a reading, but when it does the measurement is consistent. I find this limitation acceptable, since almost all my photos are taken in full sunlight with shutter speeds under 1/2 second.

My test setup is jimmied: I use a soldering circuit board clamp to hold a lens board in place, and have the photo-transistors taped flat against cardboard disks that I fit to the lens housing. In order to center the phototransistors in the optical path, I trace the circumference of the lens housing on a piece of cardboard, then use a caliper set at 1/2 the diameter of the housing. With one jaw of the caliper fixed on the drawn circumference, I score a pair of arcs (offset about 90 degrees) whose intersection marks the center of the lens housing on the cardboard. I then place three rectangles of thick two-sided 'mounting' tape at 120 degree intervals around the circumference of the circle. The lens housing fits snugly between the tape rectangles, holding the cardboard disk in place. The phototransistor is placed at the center of the drawn circumference (marked by the intersecting caliper arcs).

I did experiment with placement of the phototransistors off-axis, at the halfway point of shutter leaf displacement, but I didn't get times significantly different from on-axis measurements. My setup is probably too primitive for such niceties.

After taking a number of measurements on a given shutter, I can calculate the variance in speed at a given setting. I avoid using high variance settings when actually taking a photo. On this score, I think the timer is a reliable instrument, regardless of absolute speed measurement accuracy.

[Tin Can]

This is what I am using

I LOST my first Plug from 2013, I moved...and just got a new one, $50 shipped from EU

I am not going to open mine

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shutter-speed/id560154244

[tomwilliams]

This is what I am using

I LOST my first Plug from 2013, I moved...and just got a new one, $50 shipped from EU

I am not going to open mine

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shutter-speed/id560154244

That looks pretty straightforward. Any thoughts on its accuracy?

[Tin Can]

I have not used the new one yet

I used the old and same thing a lot trying get steady Packard timing

I had weak hands at the time, better now, practice!

I shoot mostly at 1/30 on all kinds of lenses

I do that to get even light with flash bulbs and strobes

If in daylight I shoot max 1/100 as my old lenses don't get much faster

I warm up any lens and listen to it

Slow speeds fail too

That looks pretty straightforward. Any thoughts on its accuracy?

[Ron (Netherlands)]

This is what I am using

I LOST my first Plug from 2013, I moved...and just got a new one, $50 shipped from EU

I am not going to open mine

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shutter-speed/id560154244

did get one long time ago - at the time it worked great; even could count till 1/500 sec - but after a few upgrades I lost the software on my I-pad and never found it again....

at the time I even asked the original developer to include more old shutter speed series, but if I'm correct he had sold his rights so couldn't upgrade the software. It worked on one of my older I-pads.

[Tin Can]

I kept my iPod Touch which I used for years as free telephone

and the Meter app still works on that tiny thing