Tag: shutter

Copal 0 and 1 shutter handling tips

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

Swiss camera manufacturer Alpa says to not change the shutter speed after cocking the shutter on Copal 0 and 1 size shutters.

From their newsletter:

Back in analog times everything was a little bit easier. Photographers were photographers and the number of actuations of the shutters low. Now in the digital times the number of actuations has increased dramatically. This might be the reason why some restrictions become more obvious. Copal avoided to mention that it is a bad idea to change the time ring after cocking the shutter [emphasis added]! To be clear: If a photographer constantly changes the times after cocking the shutter (especially times around 1/30 sec) he or she will destroy the shutter sooner or later. One can observe a golden shiny covering of the aperture blades from the abrasion of copper.

In order to avoid expensive repairs, please check for proper handling!

Mechanical shutter exercising day

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

Shutter lubricants get hard or gummy if they sit for too long, so it’s a good idea to give your shutters regular workouts to keep them working smoothly. It sucks, but it helps avoid sticky shutters, which cause ruined photos and expensive servicing. I try to fire each of my shutters about 20 times on every speed (30 on the slower speeds I don’t use that much) once a month or so.

Today is my shutter workout day, lucky me!

The Jim Galli shutter for barrel lenses

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

Most large format lenses are mounted in shutters, as focal plane shutters for large format are extremely rare. Barrel lenses don’t have them, and are generally used with very slow film and historical plate processes, where the shutter time is long enough that you can just remove the lens cap to make your exposure. What happens when you want to use a barrel lens with modern, faster film?

Enter the Jim Galli shutter, which is a free DIY arrangement:

Drum roll please. The world has been waiting for me to invent this.

Having just purchased a few old LF lenses without shutters, I actually have been waiting for him to invent this. Check it out at APUG.

Homemade pinholga floppy disc shutter

Nicolai Grossman 1 Comment

Will Luo's DIY pinholga floppy disc shutter

Check out Will Luo‘s sweet 3rd-generation homemade pinholga floppy disc shutter. He writes:

the third incarnation of the pinholga’s shutter. i got the idea of using a floppy disk from this blog entry. this one is customized for the holga though. it was much easier and faster to make than the last version:

1. cut off the part of the disk that has the spring-loaded protector. the disk i got had some soft paper coating inside which i removed as well.

2. make a small cut here and bend the corner up to make a small "handle" that can be used to push the floppy door open. i glued a little piece of foam there to make it less slippery for the cable release…

Continue reading at Luo’s Flickr photostream.