Finally bit the bullet on a proper shutter speed tester

I kept putting it off because the good ones are pricey, but after messing up the timing on a Nikon FM2 last month, I had enough. Dropped about $350 on a brand new, calibrated tester from a shop in Germany. It showed up last Tuesday, and man, what a difference. I had a Pentax K1000 on the bench that was running slow, and instead of just guessing with the old 'listen and hope' method, I got exact numbers in seconds. Fixed a sticky governor I would have missed. It paid for itself on that one job alone. Anyone have a favorite brand for these, or is it pretty much all the same once they're calibrated?

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dylan_rodriguez4mo ago

Grabbed one of those German testers a couple years back myself. I was working on a beat up old Canon F-1 that had a shutter so far off I was about to scrap it, and the tester showed me it was just a tiny burr on a gear that was causing the drag. It turned a frustrating week into a two hour fix.

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ryanf664mo ago

Bet you never thought a tiny burr could make you want to scrap a whole camera.

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