The Beirette “beroquick” KB135…a camera so sweet it makes your teeth hurt. I got it as a trade from a sweet guy in Germany. Decided to take it with me to the county fair. A little bit o’ wrist candy. The Beirette has settings for cloudy, partly cloudy, partly sunny and sunny, with stops in between. These animated settings correspond with the fstops shown on the side of the lens.
Same thing with the shutter speeds. To change the shutter speeds, you move a dial around the lens. The shutter speed dial is also the ISO dial (ASA and DIN in this case, since it’s an older camera).
So, say, you set the film speed at 125 and the lens to sunny. If you look at the bottom of the ring it’ll show you that you’ve selected 125th @ (almost) f22. Sounds kinda fast to me…but that’s just me. The camera body has got a hot shoe, and I’m just now putting a roll through it which I’ve synched with my studio lights.
This is also a camera where you need to set the focus. And don’t forget that the thing reads in meters. Let’s see…it says it goes from 0.6 meters to infinity. f2.8 – f22 … “B” to 125th …pretty darn versatile! It even came with a shiny little hard case and a strap! Beirette spent so much time making the plastic look all grey and steely that they might as well just have made it out of metal.
When was this thing made? I gotta go get my McKeown’s:
McKeown’s Price Guide to Antique and Classic Cameras 2005-2006 states, “Beroquick KB 135 – c1976. Simple 35mm viewfinder camera, a name variant of the Beirette VSN. Weather symbols. Meritar f2.8/45mm in Priomat B, 30-125 shutter. $10-20.”
It says “DDR” on the bottom: Made in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik
