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Detection of shutter movement

A project log for A Spring-Drive Digital Movie Camera

Digitize a vintage spring-drive 8mm camera. Not for the sake of convenience, but for the enjoyment of video recording.

airpocketAIRPOCKET 05/07/2022 at 14:320 Comments

Now that the circuit for detecting shutter movement using a photo reflector has been established, we will test whether it is possible to detect the actual shutter opening and closing movement.

After examining the areas inside the camera where shutter operation could be detected, it appears that the movement of the film feed claw can be detected. However, the claw itself moves right next to the lens, so it would collide with the image sensor.
Although we wanted to avoid touching the camera body as much as possible, we decided that we had to touch this part, so we cut off the claws.
The following video shows the claws on the film feed component cut off and the reflector attached where the claws used to be.

As a reflective material, aluminum tape was used, which reflects the IR light of the photo reflector well. In this video, the camera is running at the FPS 16 setting.

When the photo reflector was temporarily mounted in front of the reflective material to check its operation, the LED for the indicator flickered quickly. Although it is currently impossible to determine if there is any capture, it appears that shutter movement can be detected in this way.

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