P3D Re: Mechanical shutters

["John Goodman" <jgood@xxxxxxxx>]

> Did that happen to one Realist in particular or to most Realists?
> How many Realists did you check?  The reason I am asking is that
> the Realist has a very good reputation for accurate shutter
> speeds.  While I do not measure shutter speeds my exposures with
> Realists appear very accurate.

Here are the figures for the 3 Realists I tested (left shutter 
only), simple averages of 6 or 12 separate measurements, 
with some rounding up or down to avoid an excess of 
"significant" figures. Treat them as reciprocals, i.e. 1/n. 
Sorry for the decimal denominators in some cases. An 
asterisk indicates that the measured speed had such a 
wide variation (approx. 50%) that the "actual" speed was in 
doubt.   :-)

Set		7p		2.8		Custom

200		180		200		160
100		80*		180		40*
50		45		60		30*
25		23		22		10*
10		15		11		8
5		8		5		5
2		3		2		2
1		2		1.1		1.1

I tried to be especially careful about keeping the tester's 
sensor in the same position, and setting the shutter ring 
right on the marks. Unfortunately, the shutter setting ring 
on most of my Realists has considerable play (left, right, 
up and down) but I did the best I could. BTW, my first 
Realist (a 3.5 bought on eBay and CLA'd by Dr. T.) is for 
all intents spot on .and. reliable. I wouldn't have invistigated 
the other ones if I hadn't seen common evidence of 
exposure problems. In the end, shutter consistency is far 
more important to me than the actual speeds; capricious 
variation is worrisome.

JG