Watches, Stories, and Gear: Brellum is Back in Black, a Lens Made of Ice, and More

“Watches, Stories, and Gear” is a weekly roundup of some our favorite watch content from Worn & Wound, great stories from around the web, and cool gear that we’ve got our eye on.

This week’s installment is brought to you by the Windup Watch Shop.

Watches

Brellum Pandial Black DLC

Brellum’s back with an update to their sporty Pandial chronographs, adding a sleek DLC coating to their exteriors. For those unfamiliar with the brand, Brellum emerged just a couple of years ago offering incredibly well-made, luxurious chronometer-rated Swiss-made chronographs for decent prices with their Duobox Chronos. The Pandial was a follow up to those, adding an external tachy-bezel and contrast sub-dials for a more racing-themed aesthetic. Now in black, the Pandial takes on a more aggressive attitude while maintaining its otherwise high-end aesthetic.

Check them out here

Benrus Type I and Type II MIL-W-50717 Military Dive Watches

“When I think about all the things a military issued watch should be (robust, legible, functional), no watch comes as close to perfection as the 1970s Benrus dive watch. Its super-solid case, highly-readable dial, and simple but functional features make it a real classic among military and dive watches. Today we’ll take a look at what makes these watches so special.”

Click here to read more

Stories

The Verge “YouTuber Simone Giertz launches her first Kickstarter campaign, and it’s a pretty calendar”

“If you’re motivated by pretty lights and the prospect of turning them on, you might be into YouTuber and robot maker Simone Giertz’s new (and first) Kickstarter campaign: The Every Day Calendar. It’s a large printed circuit board that relies on capacitive touch and LEDs to light up individual days on the calendar — the idea being that you’ll tap on a day to make it glow when you’ve accomplished a specific goal. Let’s say you want to go to the gym every day, for example, the Every Day Calendar works as a visual reward system. Sure, tapping a light might not be all that thrilling, but it’s something.”

Click here to read more

PetaPixel “This Camera Lens is Made of Iceberg Ice… and It Actually Works”

“Photographer Mathieu Stern is a fan of creating strange lenses, but his latest creation is quite unusual, even by his standards. Stern visited Iceland and created a working lens out of ice from an iceberg.

Stern says it all started with the idea: “If glass can focus light, then ice should do it too.”

He then set to work seeing if he could actually make it happen. The first step was 3D printing a custom lens body that’s designed to hold ice within as its main lens element.”

Click here to read more

Bonus Video!

How to Tan Quality Leather and Avoid Bad Leather, by Saddleback

Saddleback Leather

Gear

The Barisieur Tea & Coffee Brewing Alarm Clock

Coffee makers on timers aren’t new, but having the sounds and smells of freshly brewed coffee on your bedside table to help bring you back from dreamland is certainly novel. The Barisieur Tea & Coffee Brewing Alarm Clock uses steam pressure to send the bubbling water from the beaker-like boiler up over the filter and into your drinking cup. Meanwhile, milk is kept cool overnight and then heated upon waking in a separate compartment. If you don’t take milk, the Barisieur’s infrared sensors simply turn off the milk compartment. Looking like a strange combination between a dope Scandinavian chemistry set and an audiophile’s amplifier, the Barisieur Alarm Clock is one of the best looking curiosities we’ve seen in a while. Available in black or white, the Barisieur sells for $445 US.

Shop Here

Fuji GFX 50R Mirrorless Medium Format Camera

A new size war has begun in the world of digital cameras that is focused around sensor size in mirrorless cameras. But while Sony, Nikon and Canon fight over full-frame supremacy, Fuji, always sort of an outsider, has turned its eyes to bigger game: medium format. Big, bulky and exorbitantly expensive, medium format digital cameras were previously just for professional studio use, but with the new GFX 50R, Fuji has put the massive 43.8×32.9mm 51.4MP CMOS sensor into a street-ready chassis. While still expensive at $4,500, it’s far less than the competition, and quite a bit less than even a Leica M10, making it pretty desirable for the photog with some cash to spend.

Preorder now