Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with shutter

What are these grommet-y things holding together the motor housing for my security shutter, can I replace them, and with which tools?

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:32:17 -0800

What are these grommet-y things holding together the motor housing for my security door (aka security roller shutter), and can I replace them, and if so what tools would be necessary? Hello,

My place of business has some security doors, which are the standard security roller shutters, an example of which can be seen here.

I have to do a small amount of maintenance on them, which requires removing the cover of the motor housing at the top of the shutter. When the cover is new, it is attached to the rest of the housing with metal grommets of the type seen here. Here is another clearer shot with less context.

But, the repairguy who worked on one of the other gates before me cut through those or forced them off, and replaced them with philips-head screws, which tends to defeat the purpose of the exercise, since anyone can easily remove them in a jiffy and get access to the motor.

I fixed the shutter with the screws a few days ago, and it occurred to me that it was time for me to replace them with something more impregnable and more similar to the original grommets, if not identical.

Question 1: what are those grommets called? Can I buy them, is there a tool for re-inserting them from one side, and is there a tool for cutting through them? I realize that if I can cut through them, anyone can, but if they are very tightly attached and it takes a specialized tool, I'll be miles ahead of the philips-head situation. Having to destroy them and later put in new ones to do work is fine; maintenance has been required on average about once every three years.

Question 2: if question 1 doesn't bear fruit, any other suggestions for methods of securely attaching one piece of thin metal to another one, which can be primarily accomplished from one side of the metal (the access to the inside of the motor housing is very very tight when the cover is on) and which will be hard for a random stranger to screw around with? Given that I'll have plenty of time and access to a complete set of tools when I need to get it off again.

No advice to call a repairman, please. Having spent more than the cost of a new shutter on the repairman who left the philips head screws, the whole "is your stuff worth less than the cost of a professional?" argument has lost its ability to compel.

Thank you very much!

How can I improve contrast of photos at the time they are taken without resorting to curves and levels tools in photoshop?

Pastabagel — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:59:07 -0800

PhotographyFilter: How can I improve the dynamic range of photos at the time they are taken without resorting to curves and levels tools in photoshop? I understand how to improve the contrast, or dynamic range, of a photo in post processing using photoshop by playing with the curves or levels tools. If you think in terms of the histogram of the image, what I am talking about is how to take the photo such that the histogram fills up the range without clipping.

Specifically, suppose you take a photograph of a crumpled white piece of paper. Using the manual settings, I can completely avoid clipping, but I get little in the way of contrast across wrinkles, etc. In other words, the histogram fills a tiny portion of the total range. What I want to do is to stretch this out so it uses all of the available range.

Does some combination of aperture and shutter affect this? In my experience it simply shifts the curve more towards the dark end or the light end, but the curve itself remains the same width. In a studio setting, would lighting help to achieve this result? If so, how would you accomplish this outdoors?

If it matters, the camera in question is a Nikon D50. I know you can change the shape of the contrast curve in the camera, but my understanding is that this is simply done in processing, i.e. it does the same thing that photoshop would do, it just does it in the camera. But the same artifacts would be introduced. (But please correct me if I am wrong about this).

How many baby pics can you look at without vomiting?

pomegranate — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:53:48 -0800

New baby coming, lots of photo ops. Which digital camera to get for less than $500? I've looked at lots of digital camera review sites, and to be honest, at 38 weeks I'm just too dumb/ADD to sift through them all to find what I want. So fellow parents/doting aunts and uncles/people who just know something about photography, what's your favorite camera for capturing the joys of baby and toddlerhood?

Here are the basic requirements:
*Fast startup time and low shutter lag in case I catch them doing something adorable (or doing something I can blackmail them with later)
*Good light controls so I can capture that golden afternoon light on her napping little face
*Portable in a purse or diaper bag
*Not too expensive - losing it or getting half a rotten bottle of milk spilled on it is just a matter of time.

Why digital P&Ss suffer from shutter lag?

PenguinBukkake — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 11:21:16 -0800

Why do digital SLRs have no shutter lag and digital P&Ss (even expensive ones) have a bad case of it? What's the technical reason I mean (I am not an engineer)? In fact, most people who still don't like digital mention shutter lag as a major problem of digital photography. Thanks.

How to manually set shutter speed on digital camera?

sgt.serenity — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 11:50:42 -0800

how do you hack a digital camera and set the shutter speed yourself ?

Pentax 35mm with jammed shutter release. Worth saving?

mwhybark — Tue, 27 Jul 2004 18:01:05 -0800

Pentax K1000, with a jammed shutter release button. I hardly ever use film any more, but have a soft spot for the 35mm format and this camera in particular. It's been jammed for at least ten years. Repair, replace, or junk and move on?