The Machine That Goes “BING” or what timer should I get for developing?

[ltketch]

Did my third ever film processing on the weekend and the images seem very contrasty to me compared to my previous attempts even though to my best ability I tried to keep to the “standard” developing instructions. (HP5, Ilfotol S, Rapid Fixer). Think I may have had the developer on the film a bit to long…is that what happens, does the contrast just get stronger the longer the film is immersed? So this got me thinking, maybe there is a timer specifically meant for the development of film (as opposed to the printing process), probably something that goes “BING” at the critical 1 minute intervals to remind you to turn the tank, is there such a thing?

 

[EmilGil]

Yes, the longer you develop, the denser negative highlights you get. As the shadows are less affected by development than highlights, your contrast will increase.

 

[Revolucion Artistico]

I usually use my enlarger timer (gralab timers do have a buzz setting) but you made me remember an old digital watch I had that could be set to beep every 1, 5, 10, 30, or 60 minutes. That would work pretty well.

 

[payasam]

Since you're not working in the dark, any time-piece with a second hand should serve well enough.

 

[MartinP]

If you have a Palm pda (or can buy a secondhand one) then there is a freeware program (means it was made by someones privately and there is no price attached) made to beep whenever you tell it to, and it also chains together developer, stop and fixer time periods.

One saves any combination of times that you want, then the program will give you different beeps and bleeps for "agitation-required", "get ready to empty the tank", "empty the tank" and "finish".

The name is Foto-Timer, and you can find it at www.jan-exner.de/software/.

As a belt-and-braces safety plan I also use a kitchen timer and my wristwatch at the same time as th Palm program, although none of the three timing possibilities have failed yet !

 

[ltketch]

Thanks for the excellent responses, I like this forum your all so helpful and practical.


Sometimes something is so obvious you cant see it, I dont have a Palm PDA....BUT what I do have is an old Pocket PC ... a quick google for counters has turned up this LINK which has a countdown timer, which with a bit of fiddling does exactly what I want. AND I can set up different time sequences for different film types!

The other programs here are interesting as well!

Big thanks to all!