Benjamin Marks
Veteran
Still tickin'. 😉These are pretty Old
Still tickin'. 😉These are pretty Old
Still tickin'. 😉
Homage or just a "Copy"?
Well, there's no picture of a camera in this post. I think I mentioned that the venerable Seiko SKX007 had many, many modifications available to it. Kind of like the Barbie's Dream House of watches. But there is also a robust world of "homage" watches out there -- essentially copies of designs that have some prestige, but with an independent maker's label on them. It's not "Psst, Buddy, wanna buy a Rollex (or Seiko or any other particular brand). It's more like, "Psst, Buddy we are copying all the design features and inviting you to pay 1/2 or 1/3 of the OEM price for the real deal because we have all of the value and 92.6% of the styling." And heated Internet drama ensue:, "I would never" vs. "who's gonna know?" Homage? Rip-Off? Six of one?
And you know, what? The "homages" are not quite as good. Oh, the durability and accuracy is there. But the lume on the hands and the indices is never up to par compared to Seiko (which does a great job with these), the homage bands are a bit "meh" compared to the original designs, the brushing on the stainless steel too. But will they function? Yup. Are the movements the same (in this case as a true Seiko SKX)? Often, or the slightly upgraded NH35/NH36 variant -- also made by Seiko as the non-brand version of their own movements. And some of the ones in this picture arrived regulated as well or better than the on-brand counterparts
A lot of these watches are made (I believe) in southern China, or sometimes in the Phillipines and certainly at a price point. I have opened them up and sometimes found surprises. Once I found a bit of vegetable matter (dried leaf) when investigating why the watch in question did not seem to be winding the way I expected (worked fine once the crap was out of the movement).
My go to combo when I'm out shooting.View attachment 4825206
An Ektra!Nice, though you "need" a Pelagos 39 to match the titanium 😉!
My 1940s combo today.
View attachment 4825208
Of course. I have 2 working Ektra bodies (& a couple non-working bodies for spare parts) & all the lenses except for the elusive 153mm. The 1 in the photo worked fine when I got it off eBay in 2009, but the shutter curtain finally broke in 2021 & I sent it to Hayata-san in Japan for repairs via Bellamy of Japan Camera Hunter. Considering it had last been serviced by Kodak in 1962, it was a good run. Bottom line: most Ektras were unreliable coming out of the factory due to the Rube Goldberg-esque shutter design, but the ones that worked have held up well.An Ektra!
Dare I ask if it works...?
Very cool... a trip down memory lane.
Being a watch fiend as well as camera fiend and lover of gadgets in general, I have a number of watches with various bits of tech, although no smartwatch as yet. Over the past few years, I've been getting back into G Shocks, and have a few which not only have radio time sync, but also bluetooth time sync with a smartphone. This enables the watch to remain as accurate as the time your phone gets from the internet. I also have a Gravitymaster GPW 2000, which has a GPS receiver that allows it to sync time with a satellite, along with radio signals and bluetooth.There is something else the two devices have in common. For my needs they are both "higher powered" than they need to be. For the camera, I love the files the thing produces with its Sony sensor. They are what I used to call "medium format quality" in the days when I shot Delta 400 in a Hassleblad sometimes. But the first thing I do when I share photos from the dang thing is throw out about 2/3 of the data . . . so the camera has many fine qualities (anti-shake, great low light sensitivity, works with legacy glass) but it is more camera than I need 99% of the time. The watch too. Who needs Atomic Time accuracy? For what? Baking bread? Getting to dinner on time? Most of of live lives at a very different level of temporal exactitude. So another, perhaps more subtle reason, for a paring on this thread.