Dead-simple shutter speed tester from old mouse parts

Photography & Video Technology
Dead-simple shutter speed tester from old mouse parts
shutter_speed_tester.JPG
Thumbnail image for circuito shutter speed tester.JPG

Pablo shows off his simple hack for testing the shutter speed of the old cameras he restores: A phototransistor from an old computer mouse, a battery, a flashlight, and a mono audio plug to his computer’s microphone port. He records the pulse in a simple audio recording utility and measures the time between the peaks. [Thanks, Billy Baque!]

4 thoughts on “Dead-simple shutter speed tester from old mouse parts

  1. jason1729 says:

    There’s really not much info given, but how does it deal with the faster shutter speeds where the rear curtain starts closing before it finishes opening…some part will be open for a lot longer than the effective speed.

  2. cranky_EE says:

    is to have multiple sensors spread over the total area of the focal plane shutter. generate an average time based on the total response of all photo sensors.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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