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I stopped chasing shutter timing with a scope and used a $12 phone app instead
Last month a guy brought in a Nikon FM2 with a shutter that was dragging at 1/250 and I had it on the bench for two evenings trying to read the trace on my old scope. Out of frustration I propped my phone on a stack of lens caps, loaded a free audio timer app, fired the shutter next to the mic, and the click gap matched what the scope was showing within a few percent. Has anyone else used sound recording to check curtain speeds, or am I late to something everybody already does?
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henrywest4d ago
Man, this takes me back. I used to tune guitar amps by ear and guys with fancy oscilloscopes would give me grief about it, but half the time my ear caught stuff their gear missed because I was actually listening to the amp and not just staring at a line on a screen. Same deal here, your phone mic is basically a cheap piezo pickup and those audio apps are just counting samples between spikes. It ain't lab grade but it'll get you in the ballpark before you ever touch a screw. Funny how the cheap trick often gets you 90 percent there and the last 10 percent is just you fiddling anyway.
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