Planet Arduino

Camera shutter speed is an essential adjustment in photography – along with the aperture, the shutter moderates the amount of light entering the camera. Older cameras (and some newer ones) use mechanical shutters that creep out-of-spec over the years, so [Dean Segovis] built a handy shutter speed tester.

With just a handful of basic components, this project is a great one for beginners to sink their teeth into. The tester is based around a photoresistor that measures light from another source (a flashlight) that travels through the camera body. When the shutter on the camera is released, the shutter speed can be measured and displayed on the OLED screen. An Arduino naturally handles all the computational duties. The whole thing can be easily assembled on a breadboard in just a couple of minutes.

The original project by [hiroshootsfilm] is over on Project Hub, however [Dean] takes a deeper dive with some code troubleshooting, as well as trying out a variety of old film cameras with the breadboard tester. His testing revealed that the photoresistor was better able to detect shutter speed when the camera lens was removed, which is a hot tip for anyone else that wants to try this.

While it’s not surprising that these older cameras are having trouble with their mechanical shutters, this little tester would be an invaluable tool when it comes time to start tweaking shutter mechanisms. The full video is after the break and more details are scribbled down here, but make sure to check out the follow-up video where [Dean] prints a neat enclosure for the electronics.

If this project has brought out the shutterbug in you, make sure to check out this brain transplant for a Polaroid 100-series Packfilm camera that we covered way back in 2011.

Hardware hackers are always looking for devices to tear apart and scavenge from. It’s hardly a secret that purchasing components individually is significantly more expensive than the minuscule cost per unit that goes along with mass manufacturing. Bluetooth devices are no exception. Sure, they’re not exactly a luxury purchase anymore, but they’re still not dirt cheap either.

Luckily for [Troy Denton], it seems dollar stores have started carrying a Bluetooth camera shutter for just a few dollars (it was three bucks, perhaps the dollar store actually means divisible-by). The device is designed to pair with a smart phone, and has two buttons allowing you to control the camera from afar. The fact that it works at all at that price is a small miracle, but the device also has potential for hacking that adds to its appeal.

Inside is a Bluetooth chips with integrated ARM controller. It connects to an EEPROM via I2C. Using an oscilloscope, an Arduino, and a Bus Pirate, [Troy] has so far succeeded in dumping and deciphering the EEPROM and was successful in renaming the device. He has high hopes that he’ll be able to discover something juicy from his preliminary explorations of the USART on the Bluetooth chip.

Ultimately he plans to document his quest to rewrite which keys the device’s buttons emulate. Once that’s accomplished, this dollar store find will have a lot of potential for cheap Bluetooth control. If you’re a reverse engineering veteran we’d love to hear some suggestions of low hanging fruit for him to explore. If you’re eager to learn more about about what you can do with Bluetooth, check out our awesome BLE primer.