This Affordable Tool Watch Has a Purpose-Built Feature You Won’t Find Anywhere Else

The indie watch market is bursting with innovation, but completely novel features don’t come around often.

That’s why it was so intriguing when, in early 2025, Nodus released a watch designed in collaboration with the analog photography club Beers and Cameras, featuring the first-ever exposure gauge bezel.

Nodus

The clever design, which Nodus patented in 2024, uses the Sunny 16 Rule, familiar to all photography enthusiasts, to calibrate a slide-rule-style bezel. The 16-click rotating bezel features a shutter speed chart that aligns with an f-stop chart printed on the rehaut, but more on that below.

The analog tool is integrated into Nodus’s popular sector model. It most closely resembles the Sector II Dive GMT with its arrow hour hand and trapezoidal indices, but lacks that watch’s GMT complication.

Nodus

Along with the unusual bezel track and chapter ring, the standout visual feature is the sky blue and white seconds hand. The shape is borrowed from the Sector II GMT, but the pattern isn’t found on any other Nodus watch. It pairs beautifully with Nodus’s signature blue AR-tinted box sapphire crystal.

The 38mm brushed stainless steel case, oversized knurled crown and tapered three-link steel bracelet are also familiar from the Sector collection. The crown and overhanging coin-edge bezel frame are made of bronze with a DLC finish, a deliberate choice that will allow them to wear over time and patina in a way similar to vintage camera bodies.

Keep on the sunny side

The exposure gauge bezel, printed on an aluminum insert, was conceived by Juan Martinez, founder of Beers and Cameras. It is actually two separate charts that give four different readings based on film ISO and the weather.

Beers & Cameras

It is set by rotating the white marker on the bezel to match the f-stop on the chapter ring to the one on your camera. The proper shutter speed for ISO 100 film is aligned at 12:00, and for ISO 400 film at 6:00. There is a shutter speed track for full sun and one for partially cloudy, both indicated by pictures.

Nodus claims that it improved the bezel responsiveness and smoothness compared to the first generation.

Going dark

The most substantial update to come with the Nodus II is an additional reference featuring a fully blacked-out DLC case and bracelet, matching the bezel and crown of the original design. It has the same vertically brushed texture as its stainless steel counterpart.

Nodus

Two more subtle visual improvements lie on the dial. The Beers and Camera’s logo has been removed, and a subtle fumé texture has been added to the black dial as a nod to black-and-white film photography.

It runs on the same Seiko-produced TMI Caliber NH38 automatic movement as the first generation, which beats at 4Hz and provides a modest 41-hour power reserve. Nodus regulates the movement to an accuracy of +/- 10 seconds per day.

Availability and price

Like so many other analog watch features, the exposure gauge on the Obscura II is completely antiquated, but at the same time, so much fun for anyone with overlapping interests in horology and photography.

The Nodus x Beers and Cameras Obscura II is available now from Nodus for $650 with a stainless steel case and bracelet and $725 with the full DLC finish.

Nodus

Nodus x Beers and Cameras Obscura II

Specs

Case Size	38mm
Movement	Seiko Caliber NH38 automatic
Water Resistance	100m

• $650 at Nodus (Steel)
• $725 at Nodus (Black DLC)

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