Shutter-Speed

Filmomat GmbH

About this app

Shutter-Speed works together with the PhotoPlug - a small sensor which connects to the headphone jack of your smartphone. If your smartphone has no headphone jack, you can use a TRRS adapter cable.
The sensor is available at www.filmomat.eu. There you also find further information about this App.

Together with the PhotoPlug, this App transforms your smartphone into an optical shutter speed tester for analog cameras. Just open the back of the camera, point the lens towards a bright light source and position the PhotoPlug behind the camera. Once you release the shutter, the App will display a waveform with two peaks: One peak when the shutter opens, another one when the shutter closes. The time between those peaks reassembles the shutter speed of your camera. The App also calculates a deviation value in f-stops and allows you to save measurements to your phone.

Acoustic mode: The App will also work without the optional PhotoPlug sensor. Without the sensor, the App records the sound of the camera shutter (shutter release sound). This works, because the shutter makes a noise when it opens and closes. Please note that this is only suitable for shutter speeds slower than 1/30sec. Faster speed will not give useable results.

Ratings and reviews

It did take a while to figure out how the app works. After you get the wave pattern, you "pinch" open (zoom) the display to make it wider between the peaks. Then you slide the Circle & Vertical line to the start and end segments. That then reads the shutter timing. I have used this on dozens of cameras before listing on eBay. I did buy the adapter for light from Germany. Count me as a happy user.

Very useful app once you get the right hardware to go with it. You can use it without the photo plug but you are very limited in range of shutter speeds that can be accurately measured. The only additions I would request are, adding a 1000/1 option and some way to automate the shutter speed testing routine so you don't have to scroll through the list of speeds every time you measure. The app is well worth whatever I paid for it, I bought it so long ago I can't remember what it cost.

If you buy the photo plug optical interface this app works accurately. However, it is cumbersome to use as you have to input the desired shutter speed each and every time. Just checking any single lens or camera is a very slow process. It would be great if the developer would update the software to allow more automated measurements. A direct readout of the measured shutter speed would make this very competitive , for which I would be willing to pay as much as $20.