Professor Newman On... The Shutter

Bob Newman gets to grips with shutter technology, from leaf and focal-plane to electronic shutters

 

It is a requirement in photography to be able to control the exposure time. In the early days, when film materials were slow, the exposure time would be measured in seconds or even minutes. In those days, the ‘shutter’ was also the lens cap. To start the exposure the photographer simply took it off, then counted ‘one elephant, two elephant…’ When the number of elephants reached the number of seconds for the exposure, the lens cap was put back on.