Finding Backgrounds

I've been trying to find new backgrounds to create some interesting shots recently and these are the results. Enjoy the pictures!

The Complete Collection

I finally consolidated and took pictures of the collection today! It's been my wish to share my collection ever since this blog was made but I never quite got to it. Before we start however, I apologize for the poor picture quality as these were taking under harsh, artificial lighting once again so the picture quality leaves something to be desired. Now, without further ado, I present to you the complete collection!
 

Casio F91W - This watch has served me well throughout my army days and has seen everything; from firing rifles to tear gas training. Unfortunately the strap became brittle and broke off after not wearing it for some time.

Vintage Pagol - This watch was my grandfather's and holds a lot of history. This watch is easily two times my age and still works like a charm. No quickset date on this watch but one can easily change the date by going back and forth from 9PM to 12AM!

Vintage Norexa in the middle, vintage Humark on left and right - Not much is known about these watches. They were passed to me by my Dad and he said that watches with such bracelets were in trend back then.

Vintage Snogem - Same type of watch as the ones above. Sadly, the bracelet could not be found.

Vintage Tudor - A boy sized Tudor Oyster, it is somewhere around three decades old. The screw down crown is a pleasure to use despite it's age.

Vintage Vulcain Cricket - This is an interesting piece; my one and only mechanical alarm and it is quite effective at its job! Rings quite loudly for about 20 seconds which should wake up all but the heaviest of sleepers.

Casio MQ24-7E - This may be the cheapest watch in my collection but I absolutely love it. Clean, simple and understated; a watch at its most basic, and the result is fantastic.

Kemmner Turtle - Lots have been said about this watch already, read my review on it for more information!

Sterile Submariner Homage - Assembled from a case set from Sizzlin' Watches with an ETA 2824-2 ticking inside. Makes for a good, reliable beater.

Octo

FCUK - This was a gift for one of my birthdays, way before I was a WIS so I didn't mind that it was a 'fashion watch'. The original leather strap it came on was in a really bad condition at the time of this photo so I swapped it out for a olive green five ring ZULU strap. This is what I love about universal lug widths.

Seiko 5 SNK807

Seiko S-Wave SKX245

 

As always, I hope you have enjoyed reading today's post and thank you for reading!

Wrist Check

Red.

Review of the Kemmner Turtle

School commitments have been keeping me pretty busy lately, hence the lack of updates. Finally I have some time for one now, so let's start with the long promised review of the Kemmner Turtle.

I've owned the Kemmner Turtle for a little over a month now, and over the course of the month, the overall impression has been excellent. Let's start with the origin of the watch case itself; the Kemmner Turtle case is manufactured by Fullswing Industrial, which is based in Hong Kong. Roland Kemmner then sources these cases from Fullswing and sells them on eBay under the moniker 'erkahund'.

The Turtle is quite the substantial watch. The watch case is very solidly built and the entire thing weighs in at in at 198g with an unsized bracelet; quite a hefty piece to say the least. The watch case has a brushed finishing all over, and the overall finishing of the case qualitywise is very good. I wouldn't say it is fantastic, but it is very good indeed, especially at the price level we are talking about.

There is however, something which is fantastic about this watch; the crown action. The crown tube has really chunky threads which minimizes the chances of cross-threading. The crown itself is really solid and instills a real sense of confidence.

It is signed with a deep engraving of an attractively stylized 'K', in the same font as the one printed on the dial. Not your usual puny laser engraving, the engraving is really deep and adds to the quality of the watch.

 

Bezel action is really good too, if a bit loud. Very precise clicks with nearly no bezel play at all. One of the best bezels I've ever came across actually. It did start out a little stiff, but over the month loosened up slightly and is the tension now is just perfect.

 

The signed crown

It features a flat sapphire crystal with underside AR coating, which I hope its scratch resistance never needs to be tested. After a month of daily wear, the crystal is still flawless, which is the norm for most of my watches as I don't really bang them around.

Unfortunately, my example of the Kemmner Turtle (which is powered by an ETA 2824-2 movement) fared rather poorly in timekeeping (sometimes us WIS get so distracted that we care more about features such as whether the crystal is sapphire or mineral than whether it performs its primary function well). I believe the watch somehow got magnetized which is causing poor performance, leading it to gain one second every hour.

I will comment on this further when I have solved the magnetism issue (or whatever else it may be), but right now at least it's gaining the same amount daily, which indicates some measure of precision.

 

Shine Bright Like a Diamond

The lume on this watch is quite good. I would have preferred Super-LumiNova C3 lume as I'm a bit of a lume fanatic and I prefer my watches to shine as brightly as possible. I'm not really disappointed though as this watch has performed admirably in the lume department considering it's Super-LumiNova C1 and I'm really quite pleased. The indices, while they aren't applied, do give the impression that they are because the lume is applied quite thickly and gives the dial a textured feel.

 

Beautifully engraved turtle on the caseback

The watch feels great on the wrist, thanks to the solidly built bracelet. It is composed of solid end links and solid links, which are held together by screws. It comes with half links and four micro adjustment holes on the clasp; no trouble sizing no matter your wrist size. Completely brushed finished, which I always prefer over polished links of any sort, so that gets big points with me.

 

The caseback engraving is beautifully done. Once again, very deep engraving which adds to the quality.

Overall, I am thoroughly impressed with this watch. What I'm really impressed with is the quality of the products that Hong Kong case manufacturers such as Fullswing Industrial and Longio are capable of.

I haven't actually came across a German case manufacturer's watch such as Fricker but I did read on certain issues such as considerable amounts of play in the bezel from Fricker cases. Do consider that Fricker cased watches are easily in the $1000+ range and still issues like those exist; I think I'll be sticking to Fullswing for now.

 

The Kemmner Turtle is available every now and then from Kemmner's eBay web store and will set you back by about US$500, excellent value in my opinion.

 

 

To end it off, here's my favourite picture of the watch. Sorry for the recycled pictures! I've been a bit too busy to take new photos. So that's it, hope this review was a good read for you!

Let's Do It Properly

I tried taking watch photos with a more professional setup today. I think they turned out pretty well, a huge step up from the previous attempts as I received some help on the lighting and composition of the shots; so good in fact that I think they're getting somewhere close to being comparable with those of established watch review websites. Enjoy the pictures!

 

Moar Bokeh

Remember when I said this blog was also about photography? Well, now you will. I told myself that I would pick up photography but I kept putting it off. After almost a year of procrastination, I started! Enjoy the pictures, I promise I'll keep working on my photography skills.

 

Bokeh for You, Sir?

Kemmner Turtle

Technical specifications:

Movement: ETA 2824-2 Swiss Made
Lume: Super-LumiNova C1
Case: 316L stainless steel with brushed finishing
Crystal: Sapphire crystal with inside anti-reflective coating

Bezel: Aluminium with lumed indices

 Water Resistance: 200 metres

And So It Arrives..

A double post to make up for the lack of updates recently! Many things were waiting for me in the mail when I came back from Guangzhou. Firstly, there was this:

 

A paracord bracelet

 

And this:

 

 Screws and movement clamp tabs, not that I need these anymore since my watchmaker could fit the movement into my PloProf Submariner without these.

 

And most importantly, this:

 

What the hell is this? Let's unravel it..

 

Oh, it's _just_ what I've been waiting for all week.

 

So Santa lives in Bad Wildbad, Germany.

Ripped it open!

 

 And a very nice looking Banda watch case lies inside.

 

Also, a paper with the features of this watch to remind you what you bought.

 

Open up the Banda case and what do we have inside?

 

Namecard and a rubber strap in sight.

A spring bar tool, and two screwdrivers were discovered too after laying the contents out.

 Finally, the watch itself.

 Here it is, the Kemmner Turtle.

Very good first impressions, it's so pretty I don't even want to take off the stickers and use it (for now)!

And the obligatory lume shot:
 

Excellent lume.

First impressions have been excellent. The whole case feels very well finished. Crown action is one of the best out of any watch I have handled. Screwing down the crown is a breeze because of the large, easy to engage threads of the crown tube. Bezel action is fantastic too, very precise and firm clicks. Overall, it has been completely worthy of being my grail.

The package that this watch comes with is fantastic. More companies should do it like this, it puts a big smile on a customers face!

Full review will come soon, stay tuned!

A Grail

I've been wanting a Kemmner Turtle for quite a long time. His Turtle watches sell out rather quickly so I had always missed the chance to get one, not today however. As I was surfing eBay today, I saw that he had one last Turtle with the configuration I had always wanted; red plongeur hands with black dial and bezel. I had to get it, this has been one of my longtime grails! Five minutes and some serious thinking later, I clicked the "Buy It Now" button.

This particular case is also used by brands like Armida, Boschett, Aeronautec, Marcello C., Kadloo, Nivrel among others. They're all Fullswing Industrial cases which can go for as little as US$55 per piece, albeit with a Miyota 8215 movement. Nonetheless, I am still quite pleased with this purchase, enjoy the seller's pictures!