Shutter speed measurement

The equipment you need for measuring the shutter speed (manual mode) of your camera is a flash meter. The measurement range is depends on the sync speed of your flash meter. If your flash meter can sync. at 1s then you can measure the speed down to 1/2s. If you flash meter can only sync. at 1/60s then you can only measure the shutter speed down to 1/125s. Basically there is no upper limit on top shutter speed, leaf shutter also works well.

• Align the spot of the touch light inline with the flash meter sensor (use reflect head).
• Remove the camera back and body cap, place the camera body in between (see photo illustration). The meter's sensor should be at the centre of the shutter curtain.
• Set the sync shutter speed of the light meter to 1/15s, the shutter speed of the camera to 1/8s or below. Trigger the shutter and note the reading on the meter (e.g F16).
• Now you can set the light meter to 1s and measure the shutter speed from 1/2s to 1/15s. For a good shutter you can get less then +/- 0.1 stop error.
• How to interpret the reading - with the above example, at 1/15s the normal reading is F16, at 1/8s it should be F22 and 1/4s F32 ...etc.
• For shutter speed higher than 1/15s, set the light meter to 1/15s to prevent stray light influence.