After the shoot · Developing & darkroom

Shutter Tester

Shutter tester: hold the phone’s microphone close to the camera, fire the shutter once, and it times the gap between the opening and closing sounds. You get the measured milliseconds, how many stops off the marked speed it is, and a verdict — normal, running slow or fast, needs servicing, or possibly sticking (based on the repair-trade rule of thumb of ±1/3 and ±1/2 stop; for reference only). Reliable from 1 s to 1/60; faster speeds can’t be measured by sound, so no number is shown. If an SLR makes more than two sounds (mirror and so on) it gives no reading and suggests mirror lock-up. Test speed by speed into a report saved on the device, re-test a single speed, or export the report as a poster. Fully on-device: the recording is analysed in memory and never saved or uploaded. Free.

When you would reach for it

• shutter speed checker
• test the shutter
• is my shutter accurate
• measure shutter speed
• shutter running slow
• stuck shutter
• shutter check
• shutter health check
• used camera shutter
• old camera shutter
• film camera shutter
• leaf shutter
• large format shutter
• Copal
• shutter speed tester
• shutter tester
• shutter speed test
• shutter speed accuracy
• slow shutter
• sticky shutter

At a glance

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