Shutter Speeds on Antique Cameras

Video Transcript

"Now on the side of this camera you have your shutter speeds and you have your f-stops. And they're pretty traditional shutter speeds and f-stops ranging from 2.8 to 22 for your aperture or your f-stop, down to a second and only up to four hundred for your shutter speed. Now one thing to know about these older cameras is that honestly most of the time these shutter speeds are not correct. As cameras age and they don't get used, if a camera's used a lot it actually stays, it stays fairly well. Shutter speeds are synced. But there are blades in this lens that if they sit, if a camera sits unused for a number of years which I'm sure this camera has, they're going to slow down, there going to almost dry out so a good camera technician can actually lube up the blades in there. Or a lot of times what I do is it, I'll just keep firing the camera. If I'm working around the house, I'll just cock the camera a couple of times an hour and fire it. And that actually tends to sort of correct the shutter speeds but nonetheless that's what you have to choose by moving these dials, is your shutter speed and your f-stop. And there's no meter in this camera, either you have to have a handheld meter or use another camera as your metering or do the old guess and that's exactly how you would use this camera."