Simple equipment designed to follow the velocity decay of a reflected light spot has been constructed from standard solid state circuits. Together with a torsional pendulum (which is usually employed with the technique of following amplitude decay) the equipment can be used to follow internal friction-temperature curves, internal friction-amplitude curves and dynamic shear modulus changes with temperature of metal specimens.It is shown that by totally immersing the specimen in a liquid the background damping is very little altered and can be allowed for if necessary. The presence of the liquid removes spurious damping effects at the dew point and improved mechanical stability and reduced thermal hysteresis is obtained.