Renting shutter tester

[arkady n.]

I bought a used lens off ebay. It looks and sounds ok, but I would like to find out if the speeds are significantly off. Is there a place in New York City where I could rent or borrow a shutter tester, or have the lens tested by them for a small fee?

[Ash]

Try running some film through it. The best test is exposing some film and bracketing.

[John Bartley]

A microphone plugged into the sound card on your computer will do a pretty good job of telling you what speeds your shutter is operating at.

cheers

[Robert Oliver]

Calumet sells one that is pretty cheap.

[Jim Noel]

You can probably buy the Calumet tester for what a repair shop would charge if you are not a reglular customer.

[Dave_B]

In addition to being inexpensive, the Calumet tester works very well and is easy to use. It costs something like the cost of one CLA for a lens. The tester is so simple and cheap that I can see no reason to not own one given the large investment we all have in our lenses. When I get a new lens, the shutter gets a pretty good checking with this tester. It is cheap insurance to make sure the shutter is on the up and up.
Cheers,
Dave B.

[Ed Richards]

I tried to buy a Calument tester recently. After 2 months on back order, I bought a used one on Ebay. I would be interested if any one knows whether they are back in stock.

[C. D. Keth]

A microphone plugged into the sound card on your computer will do a pretty good job of telling you what speeds your shutter is operating at.

cheers

You will find that a tester like this is extremely inaccurate (increasingly so as the tested speed gets faster) unless you have an identical working shutter to compare against. The sound doesn't exactly coincide with the leaves opening when you're talking a 1/400th second speed.

[mark anderson]

http://open.hr/~dpleic/photo/Shutter.html

always wwanted to make/try this....never have