NEWS: Reveni Labs Launches Kickstarter Today for Pro-Grade Camera Tester

Things are looking a little brighter in the camera repair world with Reveni Labs bringing out a new professional grade camera tester onto Kickstarter! Not only intended for professional repair technicians, the camera tester is also for amateurs, camera stores, film labs, eBay sellers, and even collectors. If you work with cameras, having something that can easily diagnose camera issues related to functions and items such as shutter curtains, leaf shutters, lens apertures, light meters and more is invaluable.

Reveni Labs is launching the Camera Tester Kickstarter today with expected worldwide shipping to backers in the Spring of 2024. Launch price will be $524 Canadian, which is approximately 382 USD and 314 GBP at the time of writing (Source: Oanda currency converter). Check out the campaign and back the project via the Kickstarter link here.

“Our cameras are getting old. Repair and maintenance are becoming more important than ever. Like our cameras, the professional repair equipment from the heyday of film is getting old too. You shouldn’t need to spend thousands on a 40 year old machine just so you can fully test a camera.” – Reveni Labs Instagram post

Features and Specifications

The Camera Tester features the following diagnostic functions:

• Three-sensor horizontal and vertical curtain analysis
• Single-sensor shutter efficiency and leaf shutter analysis
• Aperture and lens transmission
• Automatic exposure testing
• Multi-sample averaging
• Continuous shooting framerate
• Powder-coated aluminum housing
• 3”x3” (75mm x 75mm) LED light panel
• Multi-detector sensor head
• Stainless steel sensor jig rods
• Backlight lcd graphical display
• Flash sync input
• Vertical or horizontal operating positions

The device weighs 2lb or 900g and measures 6”x7”x3” (width x depth x height).

Speed range for the focal plane shutter analysis is 30 seconds to 1/12000 seconds and sensor placement includes top left, middle, and bottom right. For the leaf shutter analysis, the speed range is 1 second to 1/2000 seconds and sensor placement is single central.

For both the focal plane shutter and lead shutter analysis, the accuracy is “better than 50us in most conditions (<5us in ideal conditions) and the precision level is down to 1 microsecond. Readouts for focal plane shutter analysis also include curtain open/close time, curtain velocity, EV error, and flash sync time. For the leaf shutter analysis, additional readouts available include leaf opening/closing time, wide open time, total time, computed effective shutter speed, and a graphical shutter plot.

With regards to aperture testing, The Camera Tester has a range of F1.4 to F32 with an accuracy of <0.1 EV and precision of 0.1f.

For automatic exposure testing, the shutter speed testing range is the same as the leaf shutter mode and the aperture above. Other readouts include “aperture size, effective shutter speed, EV error for each, and a combined EV error”.

For the device’s light source, the brightness ranges from EV 17 to EV 7 and color temperature is 2800K “Typical”. Variation across the surface is <0.1 EV at EV17.

Five “momentary pushbuttons” allow users to control the device which is powered through a “12V DC 1A minimum pin-positive barrel jack wall adapter”.

If that makes sense and is something that might be useful for you, perhaps consider backing the Kickstarter!

About Reveni Labs

The mastermind behind Reveni Labs, Matt Bechberger (@mattjbechberger on Instagram), has been developing various products for film photographers including light meters (light, spot, and incident), remote control shutter release, the Dunkbot, and other misc items. All Reveni Labs items are designed and manufactured in Hanover, Ontario, Canada.

Check out more information about Reveni Labs and The Camera Tester here.

You can also follow Reveni Labs for updates on Instagram or sign up to their email notification list to stay tuned for other news!

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