If you’re a tray developer, this might raise your temperature

[John Bowen]

Or use Fred Pickers Zone VI film developer timer which adjusts for temp change. This has been out since the 1980s and works well. Problem solved and you don't have to worry or think about this issue anymore. Usually available on ebay.

+1. To quote my god friend Bruce Barlow, "you will have to pry mine from my cold, dead hand."

[Andrew O'Neill]

When I tray develop, I do one sheet at a time. My fingers don't go in the developer, so no worries about temperature change.

[Michael Kadillak]

If your darkroom is in the basement (like mine) where the temperature is cool but consistent and one follows the same procedure in their tray development, any increases in temps would be consistent and easily accommodated in the results. I do not see any problems at all.

[BetterSense]

I don't care. I don't do anything special to compensate, no water baths or anything, and my negatives come out fine, so I'm not worried. I'm not trying to reproduce a contrast chart or anything. In the summer I do have to cool the developer with ice. I was going to use a peltier element to make a temperature regulating water bath, but the project died.

[Heroique]

To quote my good friend Bruce Barlow, “you will have to pry mine from my cold, dead hand.”

Here’s the “cold, dead hand” Thread covering the fundamentals of the Zone VI timer – whose Einstein-like “distortion” of time seems to reduce the guess work about solution temperatures & development times.

Its best critics explain that its “benchmark” is (old) Tri-x + HC-110 (sol. B) at 68° F (or if paper, w/ Brilliant + Dektol) which may be reason for concern, esp. if you’re working w/ uncommonly warm or cool temperatures where film curves can differ a lot. Its eloquent advocates reply that it’s close enough for most film/developer combos at normal temperatures – including the ever-fickle T-Max.

I’m still a little curious how the tool might interpret a changing temperature…

[Drew Wiley]

The Zone VI gadget does in fact work as claimed, even though I was often personally annoyed by Fred Picker's snake-oil salesmanship style. I used this device
for many years for both film and black-and-white paper development. No, it's not
really good enough for extremely fussy tasks like color separation negs from T-Max
or critical color mask densities. It's based on 20C and can't be recalibrated for significantly elevated standard temperatures. Won't work for color chemistry. But it makes just about everything else a lot easier and predictable.

[ic-racer]

Someone has got warm hands
Has anyone been able to reproduce these results?

[Bill Burk]

I hope you take the opportunity to notice how much slower time passes as you pry the CompnTemp probe from my cold, dead hand.

[Heroique]

Someone has got warm hands
Has anyone been able to reproduce these results?

When I’m using hands, I get similar results, though not quite as dramatic as Steve’s. However, I do cool my fingers w/ ice water per AA’s The Negative & use a water jacket. Even with slosher trays, my results are heated. I think what may be a key cause of rising heat is the heat-producing, silver-halide into metallic-silver chemical reaction. Its influence on temperature probably varies according to one’s emulsion/developer combo, the total volume of solution, and all the other variables. BTW, one advantage of my rainy part of the world – no worries about low humidity & the way it apparently cools the developer!

I hope you take the opportunity to notice how much slower time passes as you pry the CompnTemp probe from my cold, dead hand.

In this case, the Zone VI timer would indicate “Eternity.”

[Bill Burk]

Heroique,

To get back to your original question, the legacy Zone VI compensating developing timer and the currently available CompnTemp timers adjust the time continuously with the change in temperature.

They cancel out the effect of fluctuating temperature in real-time.