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 ...

Buying old cameras is one of the ... Does the shutter still operate as it should? How long is a split second anyway? You need a shutter speed tester, and luckily for us, [Stuart Brown] has one.

The camera had one shutter speed: 1/50th of a second—hardly enough to stop a lazy butterfly. I had a beagle named Dixie who was like a streak of lightning when it came to chasing rabbits.