This Indie Brand Made the Ultimate Photographer's Watch: A Snapshot of the Nodus Obscura

Watches and cameras, as those who obsess over both of them know, have a lot in common, at least in their classical (read: old-school, analog) iterations. Both require complex, precisely engineered mechanical systems to do their job properly; with watches, these are gear trains and balance wheels; with cameras, timed shutters and aperture mechanisms. Both offer tactile pleasure in their usage: rewinding the film in a camera or hand-winding the movement in a watch. Perhaps the most overlooked intangible that links cameras to watches is their relationship to time: watches measure it continuously while cameras capture it in a series of eternally frozen moments. The new Obscura, unveiled today by California-based indie brand Nodus, is the first wristwatch that combines both these spiritually linked but contrasting approaches to time with its new, patented Exposure Gauge complication. And even if (like myself), you are far from a professional photographer, you just might agree with me that this is the most interesting watch released thus far this year — at least from a technical standpoint. 

Nodus describes the Obscura as “designed by analog photographers,” and “a fusion of horology and photographic utility.” Its signature innovation, an exposure-calculating scale on a bidirectionally rotating bezel, is based on the “Sunny 16 Rule” developed by Juan Martinez, founder of the photography meet-up and gear review site Beers And Cameras (whose B&C logo appears on the dial). The principle of the rule, established to help film photographers whose cameras don’t offer built-in light meters or automatic exposure modes, is that an ISO 100 film shot at f/16 requires a shutter speed of 1/125s on a sunny day. Based on this constant, the Sunny 16 Rule calculates a whole range of settings for other apertures as well as lighting conditions, from lightly cloudy to overcast to dusk. 

Here’s how the Exposure Gauge bezel works in practice: turn the bezel clockwise to match the lens aperture with the corresponding value on the chapter ring; then find the correct ISO marker on the dial’s chapter ring based on the film speed — ISO 100 or +1 (ISO 200) or ISO 400 or +1 (ISO 800). The chapter ring’s ISO indicator will then point to the corresponding shutter speed on the bezel. The photographer then sets the camera based on the lighting conditions as per the Sunny 16 guidelines. 

All of this clever functionality aside, the Obscura has a lot to offer as an everyday watch. Its 38mm case, in the style of Nodus’ Sector II models, is made of surgical grade 316L stainless steel and offers 100 meters of water resistance. The watch measures 47mm lug to lug and just shy of 12mm thick, while the rotating bezel extends to a width of 40.5mm wide for easier gripping and operating. The case is mounted on a tapering three-link bracelet (20mm to 16mm), equipped with the brand’s proprietary NodeX easy-adjustment clasp, which enables five locking positions for a total 10mm of adjustment space. 

A close glance at the dial and bezel also reveals a number of clever, subtle references to the world of photography. The light-blue-and-white color scheme on the seconds hand takes its cue from the photographic practice of exposing slide film sprocket holes, and the shade of blue itself is taken from vintage depth-of-field markings on zoom lenses from the 1980s. The orange-colored “+1” markers represent ISO 200 and ISO 800 on the dial. When the aperture indicator and the ISO marker are aligned at 12 o’clock, they form the shape of an hourglass, a nod to the passage of time and also a visual “deep cut” to a vintage watch — Seiko’s SNA411 Flightmaster, which used such a marker. Another homage element is one that only owners of the watch will get to see: the bezel and crown are made of bronze and have a black PVD coating that will wear down over time, creating a patina effect similar to those of vintage, black-painted cameras that fade to show their brass bodies after many years of use.

The Nodus Obscura contains the TMI NH38 automatic movement, made in Japan by the Seiko Group, and tested and regulated in-house, at Nodus’ Los Angeles atelier, for an outstanding accuracy of +/- 10 seconds daily. The movement boasts a magnetic resistance of 4,800 A/m while maintaining a power reserve of 41 hours. In one final nod to classic camera aesthetics, this self-winding mechanism ticks behind a solid caseback with an aperture motif. The Nodus Obscura is delivered with a Hybrid Tectuff rubber strap in addition to the steel bracelet and retails at $650. Pre-orders for the watch are open now.