Anyone Using a Metronome For a Timer

[Ghostman]

If you are doing d0dging or burning you really need some sort of auditory counter. You can't take your eyes off the print to watch a visual timer. For prints that do not require such manipulation I use a digital timer that controls my enlarger. When developing I watch an old stopwatch.

I use an Ilford Multigrade 500 with the programmable unit. So, I can program all of mz dodge/burn sequences and just click through them without having to take my eyes off the print. The unit also beeps down and you can even tell it to beep as of a certain number counting down.

The less I have to think about the more I can get into the print zone. Granted, some people find counting themselves part of that zone.

Whatever works, I guess.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

I use a metronome or a timer with an audible "beep" every second for timing print exposures. I have used a metronome in the past as well, operating the enlarger light with a simple on/off footswitch.

With the timer, I simply set it to 99 seconds so that the light doesn't turn off till I want it to. I start and stop the timer/enlarger light with a footswitch while keeping the lens covered with my dodging tool, burning card, or hand (depending on what I need to do when...). I let the light warm up a couple of seconds with the timer beeping and then start the exposure.

I dodge during the main exposure while counting up to the end of the exposure (e.g., burn one from seconds 3-6, burn two from seconds 6-10, etc.). At the end of the main exposure time I cover the lens with hand or card. Burning is then done counting seconds for each burn.

I can't imagine doing it any other way. I need to keep my eyes on my work while keeping accurate time. Hearing the beeps or clicks allows this.

That said, I am a professional musician and have spent countless hours sitting at the back of the orchestra counting measures. It is natural to me (I had a colleague who played bass clarinet and only played a few seconds during an entire piece. He would do the NY Times crossword puzzle while counting measures in his head during rehearsals. He never missed an entrance...)

For timing development, I have a Zone VI compensating timer. It has visible numbers and beeps every 30 seconds. That works fine for my main darkroom. In my more makeshift darkroom in Vienna, where I only develop film, I use a combination of metronome and oven timer. I set the metronome to one bps so I can keep track of shuffling the stack of sheet film, but I set the oven timer for the total development time so that I have a signal when time is up. I keep track of the total time in my head as well (a bit OCD...) and almost always am right on. For those few times when I lose count, I'm really glad to have the oven timer go off.

Best,

Doremus

 

[M Carter]

One good thing about metronomes - you can set some up for half-second beeps or even quarter second (BEEP beep beep beep).

One bad thing - kind of sucks to try to listen to music with one going.

I really like my Omega CT-20 - they go for about 20 bucks these days. One beep per second.

It's easy to open it up and wire in a 1/4" guitar-type jack, and use a cheap keyboard or effects footswitch from the music store (the proprietary connector isn't available). Mine is wall mounted so the switch is usually on the table, but it can go on the floor for dodging.

 

[analoguey]

Having not gone to music school, I had no idea what a metronome was - until Tim M on LFf pointed to there being apps for it.
Now I wonder why they're not emphasised first before all this talk about ' what developer, paper' etc arguments.
Set to 4 or 6 beats a minute and count them out -and printing is way simpler

 

[MartinP]

The slowest tempo on my music metronome is forty per minute, and four or six beats per minute wouldn't be much use musically I think! Presumably that sort of rate would only be on a software app of some sort? And what could you use ten second intervals for - perhaps process-timing? There are already excellent (and free) darkroom apps, for Android and Palm at least, which have programmable process-times, agitation intervals and chaining together of dev-stop-fix. The simple one second metronome beats are pretty much ideal for keeping track of printing manipulations.

 

[analoguey]

Maybe you misread my post, but I thought I made it pretty clear that I didn't go to music classes, and that it was an app?
Yes. 10 or 5s intervals are perfect -anything less is too annoying to keep count of - and since I'm neither doing Salsa or drumming to it, it works quite well for the purpose of exposing paper or developing it.

 

[MartinP]

Fair enough, most likely I have shorter printing times than you which is why it sounded too long an interval. That is an interesting idea though - the transferable practices between activities affecting how 'automatic' counting is. Someone, somewhere, probably wrote an academic paper on this!

 

[analoguey]

Anything quicker than 15-20s - I'd have a tough time trying to dodge or burn. The bulb is a little weak right now, but timing towards a min works better for me.