If you’re into film photography, you probably have some mechanical shutter cameras. As these cameras age the mechanisms get sticky and this can affect shutter speeds. It’s good to know if your shutter speeds are accurate and this device is very useful to test them. Once you know how far off from correct your shutter speed is, you can either repair/adjust the mechanism or compensate with aperture settings.
I found this project here:
https://projecthub.arduino.cc/hiroshootsfilm/e5ab59bc-ebc0-48ad-a18d-8a475f01781b
It gives all the detail on parts required along with breadboard layout, schematic and code, al of which you can also find below.
It’s a fairly simple build and it works well. The video posted below is in two parts. The first goes over p breadboarding and testing the project and the second covers building a 3D printed enclosure.
Parts:
1 – 10K ohm resistor
1 – Photo transistor SFH309-4 Mouser part #720-SFH309-4
1 – Arduino Micro or equivalent.
1 – bright white LED or a flashlight.
1 – 0.96″ OLED Display 128 x 64 SSD1306 I2C available from Amazon
You’ll need to download the latest version of “Adafruit SSD1306” OLED library for your code.
Code can be downloaded here: https://github.com/hiroshootsfilm/shutterspeedtester
Here’s the video’s in two parts.