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The Grey NATO – 367 – Our Fave New Watches for the Start of 2026

Published on Thu, 05 Mar 2026 06:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

In episode 367 of The Grey NATO, Jason and James deliver a comprehensive new watch roundup covering releases through early March 2026. The episode features a significant update on their CWN1 prototype auction for Second Harvest Heartland, which has reached an impressive $4,000 bid as of recording. The hosts discuss their recent activities—James adjusting to New York's comparatively mild weather while juggling Watches and Wonders preparations, and Jason unexpectedly becoming a potential cat owner after rescuing an orange kitten from a tree.

The watch discussion spans diverse price points and brands, from Timex's nostalgic $120 Flix with its wrist-flick backlight activation to Breitling's $9,000 titanium Navitimer collaboration with Aston Martin. Highlights include the innovative Ardra Labs Delta Type with its patented solution for half-hour GMT offsets, Vertex's desert-themed M36 limited editions, and Sinn's impressive 903 chronograph line featuring 200-meter water resistance despite the rotating bezel complication. The hosts also cover releases from Citizen, Notice, Astor & Banks, and a unique Giant Mouse/Zodiac dive watch and knife collaboration. James wraps up with a recommendation for the Godox IT32 flash—a compact, USB-C rechargeable lighting solution that's revolutionizing his travel photography kit at just $70.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of the Grey NATO, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 367 and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegrayNado.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, James Stacy. James, happy Monday. We're recording a day early tod
James Stacy ay. Yeah, we sure are. I'm in New York and uh and so we're we're using a different set of gear than we might normally. I flew down to the city early this morning um and just 'cause of a kind of a busy week of yeah, shows and little meetings and previews for watches of wonder stuff. I have to make sure I don't say something I'm not allowed to say uh on this episode. Uh but yeah, it's it's it's nice to be in the city. It was so bitter cold in Toronto that coming here to where it's I think it's like maybe one or two Celsius. Yeah, it's one feels nice. Oh sure. Yeah. I dn I'm not wearing a giant winter jacket. Uh and and and so that's nice. It's always nice to see the team and that sort of thing. And I've got a few other updates, but we do have some uh some sort of fun housekeeping and and I don't want to step on the major one, which is this is your fifty percent or your midway auction recap. Why don't you bring people up to speed on the CWN one prototype auction, which is going on on Slack as as we're recording this
Jason Heaton . Yeah. So if you didn't tune into episode 366 last week, we introduced um an auction that we're doing to raise money for Second Harvest Heartland, which is a food food bank here in Minneapolis that is quite large and has a good reputation. We actually had a few folks on Slack that said they had volunteered with them and vouched for them. Um and we're raising money to kind of help them in their efforts to uh bring relief to those that are struggling with uh with food shortages, uh specifically here in the Twin Cities and and e western Wisconsin. And what we're doing is we're auctioning off the prototype of the crew watch number one that we did in collaboration with CWC last year. This is the prototype piece that um was delivered to me in Wales in June of uh two years ago um when I did the fan dance, and I I wore it for that, and um kind of can call it a shakedown. And it's been kind of sitting ever since. I don't wear it much. You know, we got the production watches out and sold, and those were a big success. But I've had this prototype sitting here with the a glued-on bezel insert. The bezel rotates, all everything works fine. The watch is in good shape. Um but it's it's kind of a bit of a a piece of of TGN history and um and a really cool cool watch. And it's got the engraving on the back with the um triple X slash 24 serial number to show that it's a prototype. This one has the Ronda quartz movement in it, so it's not the high accuracy ETA that's in the production version. Um and it'll come in a CWC box with uh we'll throw in an extra TGN sign NATO with that as well. So um to cut a long story short, the bidding is only open on Slack and we have a special channel there called CWN1-auction. And we we're we've encouraged people to submit bids there with the winning bid um having to make a donation within twenty four hours to directly to second harvest heartland and then just proving to us that they made that submission by showing us the receipt and then uh I will ship the watch. So bidding ends on Monday. So that's actually a week from today. Uh don't get confused though, because this episode goes up on a Thursday. So it ends on Monday, March 9th at 9 p.m. Eastern time Eastern U.S. Time. And um that allows us to record on that Tuesday and announce the winner during episode three hundred and sixty eight. So um anyone can bid and we will cover shipping. Uh although outside the US the recipient is responsible for any import duties. So that's kind of the way it's working. And currently this is really exciting. Yeah, drum
James Stacy drum roll if we had the budget for that, but we don't. But yeah, throw let them know and if it if it changes while we're recording, we'll do an up
Jason Heaton date. The high bid is four thousand dollars as of this recording, as of Monday afternoon. That's pretty remarkable. I'm I'm I'm just thrilled to see that. And uh thanks to everybody that's been been been so generous in their in their bids and and I can't wait to see who takes this one home. So it's really exciting. So that's that'
James Stacy s kind of the big news for this week. Yeah, this is super cool and uh very, very exciting. And kudos to everybody who's already been in there. Uh it it's cool to see the number of people who are in there just to watch. Yeah. Yeah. Uh because the it there's well over two hundred people on the thread uh or or in the channel. And then of course not there aren't that many, there's not two hundred people bidding. Yeah. Although it's a it's a pretty good variety of people bidding uh as far as these things sort sort of go. But yeah, I I think this is great and if there happens to be an update as we record, uh we'll bring you an auction watch segment, I promise. Um but yeah, the this is great and we'll announce the uh the winner and owner and donor all in one uh in the next episode, which would be great. And then as far as my side goes, uh, you know, another big shout out to the Vancouver and Montreal Time Peace Show. That's the end of April and the end of May. You can visit timepeacehow.com for more details. I wouldn't call this an ad. We work with them. Uh I attend the show. I'll be at the Vancouver show. I'm uh sorting out details with uh Marathon and Rolldorf for another great party so stay tuned on that. We should have uh a better idea of what that'll look like and the timing, you know, in the next um in the next w episode or two, uh which is great and and something I'm very excited for. We're trying to make it something that's even easier to attend than last year. Uh so let me get back to you when I have those details in hand. But yeah, timepeace show dot com. You can get your tickets uh for both of those events. And then if you are planning deeper into the calendar into September, Jason and I will be at the Toronto show as well. And that will include, I mean, look, unless something crazy happens, a fantastic uh party with Marathon, uh which have become something of legend. Thank you. Thanks so much to uh Marathon and to Martin uh for hosting. So that that's our our little download for the time piece shows. And then yeah, man, other than that, I'm I'm in New York. Uh it's Monday evening. Uh you know, it's it's nice to be here. It's sunny. It's like I said, comparatively it's so warm. It's so cold, but uh it's nice and warm. And then man, I spent my weekend moving rooms in my house. Yeah. Yeah. So we're kind of shuffling the layout of our house because you know we've got this uh now eight month-old son, and he's ready to kind of have his own space, but we didn't really have just a fully spare bedroom, but we had my office, and so we kind of ran things around and now my office has been swapped for a nursery and one of the bedrooms is um uh you know, one of the bedrooms is now my office. So I have a bigger space but I mean that this is probably how it is with most of these sorts of things. But like if you guessed, if I had guessed, if I if we'd done a little pre-move interview, I would have been like, oh you know it won't take that long. It's probably this much stuff. Dude was ten times more stuff than I expected that I somehow managed to fit into like you've been in that office, it's about enough room for two people to stand and move around. either. It's the right size for an office, essentially. And moving everything up the two flights of stairs like from the basement to the second floor and all that was uh was an arduous task, but I believe we got through the bulk of it before I had to, you know, load up a suitcase and come down to the city for a few days. So then I got to rehang some artwork. So I got to hang the Doxa poster from you and and uh you know Justin Souter's incredible Explorer 2 uh painting and it that kind of stuff is fun to decide where it goes. And I'll probably change another three or four times before I really dial it in. But yeah, that was that was my whole weekend. Yeah, and you got a little functional fitness uh workout in there too. I did, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I definitely realized just how out of shape I was on my
Jason Heaton Well the the news here uh is um over the weekend I may have become uh a cat owner again. Oh man. Yeah, so it's a it's a funny story. I was um I was out walking Ruby, the dog, and um came back um at Christie's house in South Minneapolis here in the fenced in yard and I I took let Ruby off of her leash and she came running in, and lo and behold, there was a little orange cat in the yard. And the cat got spooked, Ruby got excited, chased the cat, which ran up a tree, um, you know, quite a ways up, and sat there and just looked down, and Ruby was going ballistic, barking, and jumping and whatnot. So I I finally got her inside and grabbed a a ladder out of the garage and propped it up on the tree and climbed up and was able to to coax the cat into my into my arms and and brought it down I've I've posted a picture some pictures and asked for some advice in the in the pets channel on on Slack. So if you want to see some photos or chime chime in. You can check that out. Um it's it's just a sweet little tiny probably a kitten or you know, uh a year or less. So now it's currently living in the studio apartment above Christie's garage, and we're a little uncertain what to do with it because we've we've put out a bun you know a number of flyers and posted on social media and on neighborhood groups and we had it scanned for a microchip and unfortunately it doesn't have one. Didn't have a collar. So you know it's a little bit of the it's one of those scenarios where if if if things happen, you know, life presents you with an opportunity, sometimes you you kind of have to take it, even if you didn't plan for it. So I'm not sure if this is going to be um you know an unplanned new pet uh in our lives or or not. And and we haven't integrated the pets yet. So Ruby still barks at at this little little kitten through the win window of the door. So but I I think there's hope. He or she is very cute. Yeah. It's a very, very personable.
James Stacy That's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. So Sarah, Sarah was somebody she followed on Instagram, maybe, or somebody a friend also was essentially a cat found them. Oh yeah. Uh adopted them and she was like, you know, if I if a cat found me and w would it and I'm like, well what are you gonna say no? Yeah, right. Poor poor little thing that needs something. I know. Uh yeah. That's uh oh what a cutie man, that's great. Anyway, we'
Jason Heaton ll we'll see where this all goes. What what are you calling him or her? We don't we don't have we w you know it's dangerous to pick a name because you you start to get too attached and then if the owner does turn up uh it would be heart heartbroken. So we're we're we're holding our breaths. We'll see what happens here. But I'll give an update next week uh when things uh if anything changes. So that's the big news here. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's a good one
James Stacy . Yeah. Yeah, well that's awesome. Look, we've got a fun one together. You know, we do these every now and then where we realize that due to the cycle of the show or guests or other topics, we just kind of don't talk about new watch releases that often. And sometimes it's like that watch is kind of just it won't be remembered in three months. Yeah. And other times you just don't get to it, but they're ones that we like and we're interested in. So I'm pumped to get to that in just a minute. Why don't we kick off sort of mo a more watch theme with uh some wrist check? Yeah, I'm wearing a watch
Jason Heaton today that um I I don't think I've mentioned on the show before. Um, you know, I I had the the Seamaster Pro um three hundred meter diver um courtesy of Chris Sowell for a couple of years. He had sent it to me as a complete surprise one it was like uh several Christmases ago. And it was a bit of you know, you said just keep it wear it, you know, do with the what you like, because I I talked we've talked about it so much on the show, the twenty two fifty-four. And I'm a little embarrassed to admit, uh about a year and a half ago, I picked up a I bought a 2264, which is the exact same watch but in with a quartz movement from somebody on the BST channel in Slack. Um Christie's been wearing that most of the time on a white rubber strap that I got from Zeeland, which fits it really nicely. It's just a great watch. But I I sent the 2254 back to Chris Sol. It felt a little excessive to have two fairly identical watches in the house here. And uh so I I've been wearing the 2264 a little bit more myself. And it's just such a perfect watch. I mean, it it's kind of does everything other than the 12-hour bezel that the CWN1 does. You know, it's got a really accurate quartz movement. It's the classic sword hand,, yep you know, kind of MOD dialed uh C Master Pro from the you know late nineties, early two thousands, kind of the heyday of Omega that we always you know mourned the loss of, and uh and it's quartz, which just makes it so fun because it's such a cool, high-end, nice omega, slim, easy wearing, versatile, handsome. But then it's got this quartz movement in it with get this, an independent set hour hand. So advancing like today, you know, or yesterday, sorry, March first. Um, February ended on the twenty eighth, so I had to advance it through three days to update the date date wheel. And you just do it by flipping the hour hand around. Like, like, why doesn't every watch have this function? I mean, it's it's nothing new. I mean, everybody, any watch nerd knows about these features. I had this function on my Grand Seiko GMT that I had years ago. But for just a straight three-hand dive watch to have that in quartz just makes it it just elevates it. It's such a great feature and I just love it for that. Yeah I'
James Stacy ll I gotta be uh I gotta be honest here I did not know it had that feature. It is so cool. Like I didn't know that forward movement is in that watch. Yeah. Uh is jump set. That's awesome. It's awesome. You can
Jason Heaton that's so handy. I know. For travel, for changing dates, times you don't you don't lose your time setting. It's yeah, it's great. So anyway, that's I'm I'm excited about it. Yeah, we're really becoming
James Stacy quartz guys. Yeah, we I feel like I feel like it's been a a long and slippery slope, like a gradual, but for many miles. Yeah. But I feel like we recently we have picked up some steam uh where where we're really moving downhill in the quartz parade here. So kind of a a
Jason Heaton a solid clip. It's quite the arc of uh arc of enthusiasm we've we've we're following here. It's kind of the opposite of most people. But uh anyway, it's uh it's great. Yeah. And you you're wearing qu
James Stacy artz today too. I am. I am. Yeah. I mean, there's just something uh like I I think I've talked about in the past, there's something so nerdy about it. And I love that you brought up the date change on your two two six four, because I'm I'm wearing the aerospace I wanted to show it to, you know, Tantan and Mark and Tim and all these guys down at the office uh 'cause they had seen it, you know, on calls and social media and that sort of thing. So I figured I would just wear that down. It's easy. And I didn't even think about it. I didn't even think about it until today. Yeah. I got on the plane, you know, March 2nd and I realized, oh, it's it's a QP. Yeah. Oh. I didn't I didn't have to change the date. Oh that's cool. Oh man. It's on the second. Right on. So I just it's uh just a delightful thing. Yeah. Uh I've rambled on a lot about it. I like I said, I think it's one of the nerdiest sports watches ever made. Yeah. Of the entire arc. And I think I wanna be straight that I think that when you talk about these sorts of watches, you would go Pluton to emergency, like not just the aerospace proper, but this idea of like a sports watch that has all these extra features, a a Swiss G Shock, if you will, in in some ways. For me, the aerospace, specifically these 40 millimeter ones, it it's like the one that get you get the most of all the best parts of the Pluton from the sizing and the great hands, from the nice screens and the the titanium construction that you might have seen on something like uh an emergency. I think this one comes together really nicely, and I know that it's a watch that is divisive. Um it seems to have a home on the TGN Slack to a certain extent. I don't mind that it's divisive. I think it is it's that nerdy. It's kind of baroque. It's a little bit too self-serious. Those are all things I'm okay with. Yeah. Um, and and I think it gives the watch a really interesting personality despite being a quartz watch. Yeah. I think I've said this before, if you're gonna go quartz, go high accuracy. And in some ways, like if you're gonna go quartz, just go any digi, like get all the features out of it. Right. And I'm I don't it's not that I dislike digital watches. I there's some that I really, really love. Uh Timex 8 Lap, of course. Yeah. Um but blending the two is such a nineties sort of idea and my my my aerospace is from about two thousand. Yeah. And I just I just think it it's something that the smartwatch kinda killed in many ways, like was the final nail in this type of watch. And now we're only seeing them like the momentum UDT coming back as like nostalgic, nerdy sort of releases, and and I think that's what speaks to me. Yeah. They're fun watches. I I have a blast right uh playing with it and I have a blast watching, you know, Tantan was wearing a a Royal oak and took it off his wrist and put this on and was like, Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good. And then I was like, You press the crown and it starts doing the repeater. And it's just like it's a gas if you're watching her. It'
Jason Heaton s just they're just funny. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting, we're both wearing watches from a similar era. You know, it's it's it it's the kind of that that golden and I we need to come up with a name for that era. It's kind of it was kind of the golden era before watches got ex really m expensive and kind of took themselves too seriously. It was kind of this era when they were serious but didn't take themselves too seriously, if that makes any sense. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Well they're still tools, right? So they had
James Stacy to be serious in a different way than a luxury item necessarily. You know, we I was having a conversation at lunch today and I and I started my brain started to wrap around this idea that like some of the my favorite watches all came from eras when watches weren't very cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the brands were trying harder to make solutions. Mm-hmm. I I th I I adore my mechanical watches, I do, and I don't feel like that's changing for me, but the extent to which I really like quartz is definitely you know, it's slowly laddering up, you know, between the the everything we talk about with the CWN one and now something like this aerospace and my eight laps and that kind of thing. There's just there's a lot of fun to be had, and it doesn't all have these are expensive, the aerospaces to be fair. Yeah. I've probably doubled in cost since I own my first one to the second one. Yeah. For me, totally worth it. I'm very happy with spending that money that way. But uh not all of them are expensive. You look at like the Aqualand uh duplex that I've got yeah was the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars and really does a very similar thing. Yeah. Just so much fun. Yeah. Anyways. All right. Rambling on about quartz, that's not what y'all signed up for. You're here to to not hear about watches from two thousand. Hear about watches from twenty twenty six. Yeah. And we've got a list. Uh Jason, where would you want to kick this one off? You want to do a couple easy ones at the lower end of the price range
Jason Heaton ? A couple from Timex? Yeah, let's do that. I think you're well qualified to introduce these Timex ones, which are I I'm I'm I'm pretty keen on this flicks, so tell us about it.
James Stacy The Flix is very cool. So let's start there. Flix is a hundred and twenty dollar version of the Iron Man. It's a bit of a throwback style and the flicks refers to the ability where you can kind of flip your wrist and it activates the backlight. Yeah. Um which is fun and and obviously I believe that's on other watches. I I definitely I I've I'm almost certain I've had G-Shocks that had that feature. Or it might have been ProTrek. One of my Pro Treks back in the day had it, something like that. Definitely, I feel like my rangeman did as well. I hope I'm not conflating all of those digital watches, and so many that I've loved over the years. But this really captures that early nineties gray, black, very plasticky look with um a lot of orange accents. And it is kind of that OG eight lap that I've talked a ton about before from the early 90s, but in the beefier version, um where you're getting a a somewhat more bulbousy, sort of oversized case and a stronger bezel design. I just think these are kind of cool. They did another version with Huckberry where if you don't like the gray uh the gray black coloring, it's more of a green with orange, like an OD sort of olive green with orange and a black bezel. Also very cool. I think it's a few bucks more. They're all between about $100 and a hundred and thirty dollars. And I think if you're if you enjoy these watches but you want something that wears a little bit more like a sports watch than a triathlon or a an eight lap, I think these are a really good option. They look really cool, nice clear screen, but this takes you up to like a forty-two millimeter maximum width, which I think is the three to nine measurement. I don't think it's gonna wear like a forty-two millimeter watch, but it gives you another option in the in the sort of eight lap vibe. Ye
Jason Heaton ah, this is great. Um good to see Timex keeping the Iron Man fire burning here. It's uh it's a it's a great watch that that just keeps keeps keeps uh evolving and existing. That's great. And then we've got this uh what are we calling this one? The T eighty, yeah. I I okay, this isn't my taste
James Stacy , but it's I I get it. It's it's kind of cool. Me neither, but I do think it's very cool. Um the T eighty is uh a legacy model offered in both resins and steel, uh recently kind of brought back and then I've been tagged in this a bunch because people know that I adore things that glow in the dark. And the case strap and of course backlight all glow on this T eighty. So it's a resin case probably very similar to what's used on the Abu Garcia, which has a glow in the dark case. And then the resin strap, it's an eighteen millimeter resin strap, is also fully luminous. So all told this is worth it just to click on the pictures. Go go check it out on the website just for the photos. I don't like glow in the dark straps. And I don't know I can't really describe why. It's like uh too much of a good thing, maybe. But for whatever reason, my taste for straps kind of limits my interest in a fully glow-in-the-dark thing. Maybe it feels too much like a toy. I don't know. But I I think these are like a lot of fun for a watch for a hundred bucks. And maybe not maybe it's not for you, maybe it's for you one of your children or for a niece and nephew, uh uh somebody that you might be buying a gift for because I think this is a really fun way to bring a kid into having a watch, being able to tell time, uh tracking the date, having a couple features, and then having this thing that glows all night too like as a younger much younger man younger man when I was a kid I would have loved this yeah I would have had a next to my glow worm and it would have been great um but yeah, I w I I wanted to call out for uh time extra these two 'cause I think both of them are great and I love that you can I think you can buy something that's fun. Maybe it's a weekend watch for you, maybe it's one that you actually use for working out, maybe it's one you just use when you're on vacation somewhere. But these are like both of them in the range of about a hundred dollars, maybe less through some retailers. Uh and I think both are pretty cool. Ye
Jason Heaton ah. All right. Let's move up uh move up uh the the price tree here so to speak. Uh maybe let's go with the the citizen. It looks like they've got a new Tsuyosa Shore, which is a watch. I think we we've probably talked about this family of watches, but with the shore they're they're kind of adding a dive watch aesthetic to it with a rotated bezel. So this is um it's a 40 millimeter case in stainless steel with it with a bracelet, decent looking bracelet. Um it's got this navy blue dial and matching bezel, a date function, and this is an automatic. So it's the eighty two ten Miyota movement inside of this one. Yep. 100 meters water resistance. So you know, technically not a not a dive watch, but come on, you could use it for you could use this for diving, especially if it's citizen. I mean, I you know, I think like Citizen and Seiko, like you could take like a 50 meter watch from these guys. I'm no don't quote me on this or or hold me to it but um and and take it diving if you wanted to they just they make these things so overbuilt and and so rugged for for what you get so um for sure. Yeah, it's a it's fun, it's a kind of a cool little offering. And um this one is uh four ninety-five, so a reasonable price. Um kind of a new offering from Citizen. It's pretty um pretty straight down the middle in terms of styling. There's nothing particularly bold about it, but if you just want kind of the classic looking blue dial dive watch and you can't pony up for you know like a black bay fifty eight blue or something like that, this might
James Stacy this might scratch an itch. Yeah, I think I think this is kind of classic Japanese and citizen dial design um with the hand t style, the larger markers, you get a date at three, like you said, it's an automatic. And then the rest of it is this sort of sleek, almost you know, I would say maybe seventies into eighties in terms of its its footprint, but it's an integrated bracelet, steel sports watch. They do a gold version with uh a green dial if that's more your speed. But I love the idea where it's not so much that they're saying it's a dive watch, they're just adding a bezel to a design they already make that's pretty solid with the Suyoya. Yeah. Tusoya. Suyosa. Suyosa. With this tsuyosa. And I like the shore naming. I like that it's so conventional that the photo on the site isn't even that interesting. I think it's the kind of watch where you might you kind of have to go down and look at the couple of wrist shots they included to get a little bit more of a vibe and then it's citizen, like it's probably available nearby to where you live and you just have to go check it out. I think it's quite a handsome looking watch. It actually in many ways, especially if you're kind of zoomed out and you can't quite tell the integrated bracelet and that sort of thing, it kind of cuts some of a similar aesthetic to like a Halios in some ways. Yeah. With the like a C4th and that sort of thing. And and I'm not against a casual watch that someone could wear at the pool, at the beach, on vacation, um and even up to diving. I've I've dove with watches that are a hundred meters. Uh it's it's a question of whether or not the brand actually means a hundred or if they just mean less than two hundred, whatever that means, right? Like there's it's you know, the the water we've we've complained at length about the water resistance thing, but citizens not one of the brands I would put on the list where the number doesn't really mean that much. If they say it's a hundred, I'm sure it's a hundred. And uh and yeah, I think this is a solid, solid thing for five hundred dollars. And I think especially if you felt like the standard model um maybe was just kind of you wanted that something a little bit more sporty, a little bit more fidgety. You like having a dive bezel. There you go. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Nice stuff. Yeah, good stuff. All right. We might as well maybe we just keep moving up the up the tra up the the tree here, the the price tree. Looks like we've got a notice um obscura two for six fifty. Have
James Stacy you you've handled one of these before, right? So yeah, I haven't um had this in hand, but I I know some of the team behind the original collab. So the original model, which came out in February of twenty twenty-five was limited to um uh based on a pre-order with deliveries in June of of last year. And I think they just made however many were pre-ordered. I don't know what that number is. Um but it it's a fairly interesting watch of thirty eight millimeters, so it's forty across the bezel. It's made by notice, which is I I think a very good thing. And then the collaboration is with uh beers and cameras, of which I know Juan from beers ander Casam fairly well. We've hung out at a couple uh Leica events around uh Germany and have spent some time with him. And the the idea is you can use the bezel um to help measure a certain style of exposure when you're taking the camera or when you're taking photos. So it uses the Sunny 16 rule and a setting on the bezel and the Riut that basically allows you to adjust for a given ISO based on it being sunny or cloudy. And if you're a film photographer, if you're an analog photographer, this may sound in your mind immediately understandable. Otherwise, I can link a story I wrote for Hodinki uh when the original model launched. Uh this new one uh is now available in two versions, uh sort of steel version with a black bezel and an all-black version. Both have the same sort of dial and handset. So it really is just the the small differences between the two and the pricing six fifty or seven twenty-five for the black DLC. So bit of a premium for the black one. Uh otherwise it looks like they largely stuck to uh the the format of the And yeah, they've uh no longer have the beers and camera logo on the front of the dial. I believe it's on the case back. And uh just to kind of clean up the um the dial design. And then they've uh modified or or refined the bezel action as well, and then the dial now has like a fumet finish. Um and oh, and finally there're also including the latest version of the notice extension clasp. So in in the bracelet. So there's some updates there. And really it's just a a really good looking watch with a little bit of a nerdy complication function function set for 650 bucks or I guess a little bit more if you want the all black one. But I'm I'm a fan of these. I thought it was a cool design. It's not something I've seen done before. Yeah. Yeah. I can't say that it's something I would need, but I could definitely see why it exists and the fact that Juan who basically just leads photo walks all over the world for all sorts of different cameras uh and has this incredible community behind him, I I can understand why this came from him and and I really like it because of that. So shout out to notice and to beers and cameras
Jason Heaton . Yeah, that's great. Possibly one of the most unique um bezel complications, if you will, or bezel markings uh anywhere around. It's really really um novel. I love it.. All right Where are we headed here now? Now we're now we're jumping up here. Um around uh well, we're looking at about a thousand bucks. Now we're on to an Astor and Banks, the Terra Scout, which again, a really cool watch. You know, these micro brands that are just trying so hard and they're just they're you know swinging for the fences here. And this is I'm I'm I'm looking at the Hudinky story that we'
James Stacy re linking here and the the loom shot of this thing. Wild. Yeah, I think this is a great watch. Um, you know, I've been a fan of Astor and Banks and Andrew. Uh I you know, we've hung out with him before. I saw him last year at the Vancouver show. He makes a really incredible thing. He's also the guy behind SO Labs. Uh these are really, really nice watches, and they all hit at a really nice price point and they all kind of do something that isn't necessarily the most predictable. So they're all called the Terascope. They come in a few different versions. It's thirty eight point five millimeters and it's either stainless steel that's sandblasted or Sarakote or DLC. So three really different watches in the end, 660 feet, so 200 meters of water resistance, and dial in either black or white. They're like sandwich style dials that recess the date marker. So just a little bit of an interesting way of doing a date. It's a light it functions like a pointer date where the inner dial has sort of an entire range of the date play and then one of them will you know be read if that's the day. And then they have uh versions where you could get uh like a sand colored uh I don't know what's left, so we don't have to go into all these details. The desert sand seraco, my favorite was limited to a hundred pieces, and you know, these went on sale some time ago. But it is something where if you didn't catch it on your radar when it came out. And now I look at the photos, and yeah, the loom, the loom dial's rad, but even the standard dial, because they have the this sort of two-phase luminous ring. So every 15 minutes goes from blue to green. Yeah. Um as you circle the dial. I d yeah, I think it's just a fun, really good looking watch. It's the right size. Yeah. Uh, you know, not not super thick. These are using a Lajou Pre G one hundred, which I think is uncommon at a thousand dollars unless I've unless I've gone crazy. I think that's that's quite a a higher end spec movement for that price point. And they come in at 10. mil4limeters without a rather sizable box crystal or 12.4 with uh the crystal um which I assume is you know more of an aesthetic decision than purely needing to guard the uh the watch itself, and you can certainly see it in the photos. It has this great bubble effect. I think these are really, really successful and a nice price point, and I'm hoping it's something I get to see uh in person in in Vancouver
Jason Heaton . Yeah, cool stuff. Um, like I said, these small brands that are that are doing some really cool big stuff. I I I'm just uh in awe of that. That's great. Um all right, let's let's uh now we're we're jumping up a bit in price. Let's move on to um how about the giant mouse and zodiac collaboration? This is uh Yeah, yeah. This is unexpected and cool. Yeah, from our friend uh Jim Wirth, uh enthusiastic uh TGN fan, longtime listener, Slack uh contributor. Um, he he works forant Gi Mouse here in the US. It's kind of a collaboration. Um, he's kind of their US side of things, and then uh it's a Danish uh Danish made or Danish uh designed uh knife company. And um and they've c collaborated with uh with Zodiac uh to make uh kind of a set that includes a a dive watch and a and a dive knife in a box set for two thousand two hundred ninety-five dollars. And the knife, of course, is from Giant Mouse and and you and I are both big fans of their of their blades. Got a couple of their ace uh ace folders. And then the the watch is is a zodiac, you know, based on the super sea wolf uh the ProDiver and they they're're kind of going with the throwback color scheme that that you know people might remember from a well-known sixties seawolf from Zodiac with that light blue and orange bezel um with some orange markings and an orange minute track on the on the dial. Yeah. Um just a a a really cool kind of set, you know, it's got the kind of beefier, not the tropic style, but the beefier kind of accordion vented uh dive strap and it comes in a box set with this knife. And um yeah, I think it's a it's a lot of bang for the buck. And you know, we we're big fans of giant mouse, and and zodiac certainly makes a a handsome piece. So um yeah, fun, fun collaboration.
James Stacy Yeah, no, I think it's really cool. I think for me, like the the watch feels like a largely known, even similar colorway to some we've seen in the past from Zodiac. Mm-hmm It's the STP automatic movement, it's cost certified, uh all that sort of thing comes on a uh rubber strap and gives you three hundred meters of water resistance. The knife on the other hand, as much as I have experience and and I carry very often uh GMX from uh Giant mouse that I absolutely adore it. The product's incredible. Uh this is a fixed blade dive knife with a blunted end for prying, has a line cutter built in, has twenty six millimeters of serration on one side of the blade, and then it has a uh steel uh signal pommel, so at the end where like at the base of your hand if you're holding it for tapping against a tank or something like that. And made out of N three sixty I, mean, everything I've ever come across from Giamouse is just super high end. Really nicely considered, nicely made, nicely finished, all of that kind of stuff. And as far as a dive knife goes, I don't know that I've seen one kind of any cooler, certainly.. Yeah And uh and yeah, it's a great design. I think the knife is quite cool. And then to do the set together, I think is an interesting way of going about it. It's three hundred pieces total. Um clearly meant for, you know, divers or or collectors, uh kind of maybe the overlap of the two, uh, but always cool to see uh giant mouse working with uh working with anybody, and I think it's a pretty good looking zodia
Jason Heaton c as well. Yeah, I think this might be one situation where you, you know, you you're almost it's hard to decide whether you're buying it for the knife and and getting the watch or buying it for the watch and getting the knife. But uh both are really cool. It's a nice offering. Yeah. All right. Now um we have an interesting one here. This is um this is from a company called Ardra Labs and it's their Delta type. So this is a watch that um just popped up on uh in a hodinky story actually today by by Tantan. Um and it's a watch that I feel like has been around for a while because the the the company founder had actually um his name is uh Nava Krishnan and he um he's from India and he I remember him reaching out to me probably via TGN a couple of years ago telling me about this watch because I used to complain that going to Sri Lanka, you know, there was never really a GMT watch that would cover the the half hour offset that that some parts of the world have, Newfoundland, India, Sri Lanka and a few other countries. And uh I appreciate your pronunciation of that. That means
James Stacy that's quite meaningful for me Even today I had people say Newfoundland Newfoundland. Oh my gosh. I had to correct myself to go the wrong way. Yeah, right. Uh this this watch is exceptionally cool. And yeah, we've I feel like you and I have traded emails every six months to a year with Nava for some time. Yeah. And I gotta I gotta s just put it out there like I feel a little bad because I all along I was like, Yeah, it loan me one. As soon as it's ready, loan me one. Or if you want to do a story about developing it, let's do that story. And he's a very b busy guy, as you can assume. Yeah. And so he finally wrote me and it was after I'd kind of transitioned into editor in chief. I just don't write that much anymore. It's just very difficult to fit it into the schedule. And I was like, look, I I gotta take a pass on this, unfortunately. But I've got a nerd on staff who I think will really dig this. And I quickly fired it over to Tantan. And like in 20 seconds, he's like, this thing's nuts, please. Yeah, I'd I would love to take a look. Yeah. So walk people uh walk people through what he does, because it's a it's a a really straightforward, simple, non-complicated solution to a kind of complicated problem mechanically and he has the patent for it. Yeah again it's it's us
Jason Heaton ing um sort of a visual you know purely mechanical and not as in the movement but as in the hands themselves as a way to indicate um different time zones. So, you know, you have a standard minute hand, but then you have you have kind of your your home time or your your standard hour hand. And then through this I I I guess I like the way that that Tantan described it,' its's it kind of an open-sided triangle. You've got the standard GMT hand that points to a second time zone, and then you have another kind of pointer that's pointing to a 45-minute offset or a 30-minute offset. So and they're all rotating together on the dial. And it's just um and and pointing to a rotating 24-hour bezel. So it's it's just a a fascinating simple way that like somebody who's thinking outside the box al,ong the lines of as we,'ve discussed, um, you know, the tech gombessa from Blanc Pen, you know, things like this where rather than over-complicating it, they're almost oversimplifying things and saying, what's the simplest way to do this? And how can we do this using the hands. And I just really admire it. And then the rest of the watch, it's it, you know, when I look at it, it has kind of that Monin style CWC style case, um, kind of a diver style steel case. And um it's uh yeah it's it's just a really neat thing and and just
James Stacy you never see anything like it. Yeah, so the it yeah so you have your two hour hands of course being a GMT and then you have this wild and and I read Tantan's story and I agree like once you once you wrap your head around the fact that it's essentially like an open triangle or like an arrowhead yeah but with nothing meaningful at the back so the three points are all indicating minutes mm-hmm but you really if you just want to read the conventional minutes in that time zone, it's the it's the the the prime like it's the the vertex of the triangle of the preserved triangle. Yeah. And I just think this is fabulous. I think it's super cool. It has a really simple um delineation because each of the three minute pointers, they're all it's one hand that points in three directions. Yeah. Or to three points on the dial. But each one is color coded and then the color itself, there's a little chapter on the dial or a little reference on the dial. So you know, white being zero, light blue being half hour, and then uh oh seven five forty-five minutes being the final reading. I I just think it's it's very cool and it's also not unlike what you were saying there just a moment ago, Jason, when he was originally sending us emails in my mind, I was like, what is this is going to be so much harder than it needs to be, or so complicated that it will only apply to people who really need this, yeah. Rather than being like a really cool way to have a travel watch. And then in the end, it's quite beautiful. Your brain immediately knows it's weird. Yeah. Because you're so used to hands being a certain shape and having endpoints. And then on top of that, I would say it's like, yeah, largely wrapped in a very traditional sports style case. I I would think Monin crossed with the the current Langines Spirit Zulu mm-hmm with the you know the radial brushed steel insert pretty straight clean lugs it's a nice size yeah I I think this is really really cool. I mean I'm sure that these are going to sell out. They're they're you know they're starting kind of small with these. It's 300 pieces at 2500 bucks. And you know, I don't think it solves a problem that afflicts people permanently, even people in that I'm I'm assuming over time you just adapt or you run a watch that can totally adjust its time zone. But man, this is a really cool way of going about it in like an artful sort of manner. And and you know my love of a twelve hour bezel because it adds
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Great job. All right. Let's move on to what I consider, at least on this list. I was gonna I was gonna introduce, you know, when we do these new watch roundups, I was thinking of introducing a question at the end of like which one would you pick out of all of these in each each episode. But I'm just gonna, you know, cut to the chase here. This is this is my favorite watch of the list. It's the Vertex um M36 Desert Edition or DE. Um you know, we're both big fans of of Vertex. Um and the it just amazes me at how, you know, Don, the owner, the I believe he's the great grandson of the founder Vertex, um, who we've had on the show a long time ago, um, how he's able to iterate a such a simple watch and b such a like a classic old design. You know, basically this is the the reissue or or reinterpretation of the Dirty Dozen piece that Vertex right issued or was uh supplied to the Ministry of Defense during World War II for the British military. Um and he's he just kind of keeps spinning out these different versions. And this one is a a limited edition for British Watchmakers Day 2026, which is coming up very soon, I believe uh this coming weekend. So if you're in London, go check this out. Again, Vertex M36 Desert Edition, and it's got you can get it in either a bronze or a stainless steel case, the 36mm case. This one has a Solita Caliber SW260 automatic. And it's good for 100 meters of water resistance. The neat thing about this is it has this kind of sand colored dial. It's a bit of a tribute to the long range uh desert recon group during World War II that kind of worked with the SAS in the in Libya and the and the North African deserts. Um and it just looks so sharp. It's got the three-dimensional loom that you expect on vertex, but then they put a dark frame around each of the numerals so it stands out against that lighter colored dial. And only 30 pieces of each uh uh steel or bronze. Um, and it's about 2265 for for each of those. And I don't know. It'
James Stacy s it's such a killer. I just love this thing. I d I missed when this like the when the email came out, or maybe it was on social, and a friend texted me and goes, Man, that desert vertex is awesome. And I went and looked it up quickly and saw the bronze one. I was like, oh yeah, that's that's cool. I like I get it. That's cool. You know, I'm not a big bronze guy. Yeah. Um, I'm not really like a brown tone guy usually in terms of dials and that sort of thing. And then I saw the steel one. Yeah. 30. Only 30. Somebody, somebody's going to have a very cool watch. I'm M100's on my my short list. I'll have one at some point. Like I said, I think on last week's episode, like I saw Frank's in um in New Hope and absolutely loved it. Uh shout out Frank, uh one of the one of the guys that shows up and supports those great New Hope hangs. Um and I just thought it was great. He had on like a ladder style bracelet. It just wore really nicely, all really cool stuff. Um, but yeah, I think cool desert dial thing and and man, I'll include it 'cause there's so many in there that it you know, we would go for hours. But there are a ton of cool watches being announced for British Watchmaker' Dasy. And if you didn't see the story that Tim Fox wrote for Hodenki covering all of them and giving you links to each one to check out, I'll include it in the show notes as it's a good one. Um in the interest of time, because we do have a time limit on uh today's show due to other engagements. Uh, I do have a double set here before we get to um uh a quad of German watches, but I have a double set of very good, very interesting uh titani watches, two different price points. Uh The first one is the Christopher Ward Bark and Jack Green 15. So this is not available anymore. I think there's a wait list on it. There was a pre-order period. I think it was quite successful. I'm bringing this up specifically because I got to see Adrian from Bark and Jack at the tutor event. He was also there, and this is the watch that he had on. And I have some experience with the uh the Lumiere, which is kind of the base for this watch, and this is better. It this feels a little bit more specific. It feels a little bit more uh dialed in and then checking out the loom it's even more fun. Uh so kudos to anyone who managed to snag one of those during the pre order period. Um, I'm sure we'll see a few of those pop up on the T G and Slack. Very cool watch. It it's such subtle tweet versus the standard Lumier. Uh, but I think it's uh a cool thing for sure. So shout out to uh Adrian on that one. Uh it was a treat to see in person. And then the second one, and I think this is like quietly one of the weirder watches that came out this year. Yeah. Because it's an Aston Martin collab for Brightling that's also a titanium Nava timer. Now, before you get too excited, um depending on your wrist size, it is the larger, it's the 43, not the 41. But it just hints like maybe there's a world in which we see and also like I don't maybe do we want this? Do we do we want a titanium forty-one millimeter Nava timer? This is only a few hundred Swiss francs over the standard Nava timer. Yeah. And if you're an Aston Martin fan, I think the value's there in spade. And you know, there's a world in which who knows what goes on with the whole Honda problem. We were less than a week away from the first outing of Formula One this year. But there's a world in which it's quite an interesting year for Aston Martin. They have Adrian Newey. They have um you know, new it's a reset in terms of strategies and vehicle types, like like all the changes to the the guidelines and the and the regulations and stuff. So could be an interesting year. It's definitely an interesting year for them to be uh supporting an F one team and and for a brand so synonymous with um aviation yeah to go into Formula One. It's gotta be a push for that that big wide audience, and then to do a very nerdy spec of a of a watch, the titanium version of an avatimer. I just like I kept scratching my head, like I think it's cool. But I I don't I don't know how like may I think the the it's it's possible that the audience for the Aston Martin part is bigger than the audience for the who wants a titanium navat
Jason Heaton ine. Yeah, I do wonder about that. And I I think the aviation motorsports overlap is I was gonna say it's weird but IWC does it all the time. I mean they've been doing it for years with again pilots watch I mean the the the F1 drivers are called pilots um you can you can you can make it work for for yourself however you want to justify, you know, your nine thousand Swiss francs for this one. Um but a titanium navitimer is just cool. And I'm sure, you know, forty-three is a a big watch, um, no matter how you look at it, but it will be at least a lighter than a steel forty-three millimeter. Um and I like the coloring. I like the restraint they used without a lot of branding. Um yeah, it's a it's a cool piece
James Stacy . I think it's a good looking watch. You know, there's that that side of me that just loves the idea of taking an old school design and doing it in titanium. Yeah. It's you know, I think I see it in this as well. I'd be excited to see if they could do something closer to the the throwback models um put it put in this in this mit material. Maybe titanium's having a moment, maybe it's just uh confirmation bias. I don't know, but I I do think it's kind of a cool thing. Uh with that in mind, uh with uh you know about fifteen minutes left here, you want to jump into our friends at Zinn and their recent run of uh many new releases?
Jason Heaton You know, I got this email a few days ago, um, as I'm sure you did with with their their new releases. I I love seeing emails pop up from Zinn because they're just they're they're very um very understated in kind of their descriptions. Um and matter-of-the-art. It's just very matter-of-fact, yes. Very yeah, I hate to I hate to lean on cliches, but it feels very German. Um they they love to talk specs, which which we love. Um so they have three versions of their 903, which is um, you know, Zen can be a little confusing with their their nomenclature and their numerals for their names, but the 903 is a watch that um I don't know the exact history of this, but there was a time when Breitling had sort of had to liquidate um during the quartz crisis and a few brands kind of took chunks and pieces and different technologies and designs and and Zinn was one of them and they were making this 903, which is basically a NavaTimer. So it's interesting that we switched from the titanium NavaTimer right to this 903 because it is basically a three-register Nava timer. I would almost say lookalike. It has its own zinn-ness to it, but um it's a nice NevaTimer alternative. Uh, our good friend Matt Ludwigson has a previous version of this that I've seen, and I absolutely love it. Um what's interesting about this one is they've got three versions. So they've got the the nine oh three Thai anniversary. So it's a titanium here we go, just like the uh just like the Navitimer. Yeah, that's why that's why I c I was happy when they kinda came last. Yeah, the the the nine oh three. Um S t then they've got the ST2A, then they've got the S2G, which is basically a green dial version. So um what what the previous iterations of this watch, you might remember, had a very kind of weird way of of activating well not a weird way, but a a different way than the Nava timer of of actuating the internal rotating scale on the on the slide rule. It used to be a with a crown at 10 o'clock that would rotate an internal bezel. Um and then you'd still have the chronograph pushers on the right side. Right. This one actually uses um now they're they're actually um using external bezel grip to turn the internal timing scale. And you know, in typical kind of Zinn technology fashion, um, they're using something called DSP technology, which allows them to get uh 20 bar or the equivalent of 200 meters of water resistance using this chronograph with this hybrid sort of internal external bezel accu actuation, which is quite impressive. Um that's that's no small feat. So that's kind of the significant part of that. I I think these are really handsome. The the ST2A has this kind of dark gray kind of slate sort of dial. The green is nice. Um a little bit of red accent. Yeah, and then the anniversary, which is which is beautiful with the contrasting reverse panda uh subdials on that one. So um yeah, these are really cool. They're they're expensive. You know, Zin usually doesn't come in at the top of our range when we talk about new watches, but these are um these are pushing it. So the the uh the anniversary of the titanium is 4940, the st2A is forty two sixty on a strap, and the st2g is forty-six eighty on a bracelet. Um and then finally we have um kind of another interesting release from Zinn, uh kind of a niche one, more specific to a um I think it's a it's a German foundation called Sport Hilfe. Um and it's a white dial, very spare, beautiful, minimalist looking one four four four. It's the 144 STSA Sport Hilfa. Um probably not a watch I would buy given the kind of specific um reference to this this organization. It has a small logo on the dial, which is pretty unobtrusive and fairly handsome. Um but I I love the use of the the red uh chronograph hands against that that white dial in the one four four format. It's a it's a neat piece. I've always I I have a one four four and and I just
James Stacy love this uh form factor. Yeah, and I mean they they do special edition 144s every now and then. There was a great Luftanza blue-orange 144 STSA G MT, similar to the one that I had, which was just the black dial. Yeah. And yeah, I think this is really handsome. I think people got really excited about it. And then like just just calling balls and strikes here. And I'm not even saying it's a strike because you know, we we're talking about a a limited edition of three hundred pieces for a known market of of this this collaboration. But it is expensive if you're used to the number that would have floated around previously for a one four four chrono. Mm-hmm. This is fifty six hundred bucks, fifty six forty from watch buys. Yeah. Um 41 millimeters uh you know uses the uh Zins C ninety nine oh one chronograph, automatic chronograph. So it's it's largely similar to one four four's um you're getting the white dial. Um, but it is, you know, it's a uh a jump up in um in pricing for this connection with um with this uh uh the Daisha Sport Hilfe, which is what the the I'm being told it's performance, fair play, and togetherness and uh and the pyramid logo is on the dial. So that I I don't want to speak to the community surrounding that product. I don't know it well enough to to weigh in. Jason, I'm not sure that you do either. But it feels like a big number, but that's it. This is this is, I think, where we've seen Zinn's chronographs trending largely. And if you remember last year, my excitement over the six one three dive chronograph was partly tied to I'm a little bit surprised by the where the pricing's lower than I expected. Yeah. Right. So I think this might be in the same shift to the higher side, but you know, for limited editions and that sort of thing. And and it could be the kind of thing that they're pricing specifically for the German market. And that's how it'll go. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. True. Cool stuff though. Yeah. Um and that nine oh three TI anniversary I think is just I'm that's one I mean I I'm I'm very excited they're showing at Watches and Wonders this year. Oh yeah. Um so they're in the Pal Expo and we'll be able to see their stuff. And it's one of my five favorite meetings of that entire event. Yeah. Of being uh there. Normally you have to go to time to watch us for it. But it that's on my list of ones to see for sure. I think it's gonna photograph beautifully. Um I'd love to see it on a NATO or a a canvassy style strap, something like that, I think would be a lot of fun and a nice match. And you know, five thousand dollars, that's you're you're in the range of the tutors and the and the tag hoyer, um like the the new Carreras. So like that with that competition, it doesn't feel that surprising. Yeah. It's just I think sometimes you put a number in your mind for a brand and that's not all the way th the way that it is, especially when they add in titanium and a limited edition and you know, check more boxes, right? Yeah. Cool thing though. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's our uh that's our new watch roundup that only takes us to March 2nd. It's only been two months. I'm sure we forgot some, which is a great option for uh the TGN Slack if you guys want to bring up the ones that we didn't cover or ones we might have missed. I'm sure we'll do another one of these, you know, by May. We'll have lots of new watches in April. Uh but it, you know, we had this list of a couple watches I was really pumped about, and especially with like the Delta type finally having a story to share on that. Uh the Ardra Labs watch and the Titanium Nava timer and the I thought the the you know the Citizen uh Suyosa Shore was quite cool. And yeah, there's it's it's it's a solid list of watches and some that I'm like I said, like with the Astro and Banks ones, I'm hoping to be able to see come the end of April when I'm at the timepiece show. Yeah, and and a definit
Jason Heaton ely a very TGN um vibe among all of these. There's been we've got Vertex and Zen and Astro and Banks and you know of course the Timex stuff. Yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah, we got we got types for sure. Fun epis
James Stacy ode. All right. Well let's uh let's put a bow on it with some final notes. You
Jason Heaton want to go first? Sure. Yeah. Um so I've got a a a friend who lives up in Duluth um recently was uh accepted to the Explorers Club. So congratulations, Ryan. This is Ryan Romka, who's a good follow on Instagram. You should check out Ryan Romka, um, R-U-M-P-C-A. We'll put a link in the show notes. He's a really talented cinematographer and photographer. He helped me edit my Defender Trophy video. And he accompanied uh a kind of a small film crew to join Peter Shirkey, so um Paul Shirkey was Will Steager's navigator when he um was did the first dog sled trip to the North Pole, and his son Peter um has kind of taken up the the adventure mantle from his father and works as a sailboat skipper in Svalbard, Norway. And Ryan went over there and and spent some time on on Peter's boat and and helped film some of the footage for this YouTube video called Where the Wind Takes You. It's about a 12-minute video, beautifully shot, you know, some drone footage and onboard footage and some interviews with with Peter Shirke. And uh, you know, that part of the world is just so gorgeous. And to sail there is it just's such a neat thing. And they they see polar bears and you know calving glaciers and and it's just a it's a beautifully shot video and I just want to give Ryan a shout out and uh and direct people to his video. He's he does really, really cool work and he's a good follow on Instagram as well. So uh check that out. Wh
James Stacy ere the wind takes you on YouTube. Oh man, that sounds awesome. I was I've been in like a bit of a rut of like YouTube. Sometimes I go in and and there's nothing in my subscriptions, there's nothing new. Yeah. And other times I go in and like the algorithm gives me two or three videos I really enjoy. And yeah, so this is great. Um, this sounds awesome and definitely something worth checking out. Yeah. Uh mine this week is is a piece of gear. Uh I don't I do commonly talk about cameras and that sort of thing. I don't that commonly talk about flashes. I'm I for a really long time, many, many years, maybe even longer, two camera systems back. I used to use a Canon, like a big expensive cannon flash and I dropped it and it broke. So then I bought a GoDocs because everybody on the internet was like, hey, especially if you use manual settings, which I do, because I was shooting off camera and didn't spend the money for an expensive trigger that could do TTL and really like if you're taking a watch photo, the light's not changing, you're creating the light. So it's just a question of positioning the flash and then raising or lowering the power until you get the photo you want. Yeah. A little bit of trial and error, do it ten thousand times and it becomes quite easy. Recently I've wanted to just consistently minimize my gear less and less and less. Things that do very specific things in ways that I enjoy them. And as such, uh you know, I have a big heavy camera and I'm always looking, can can the rest of this be lighter, smaller, easier to travel with, more flexible, that sort of thing? And so recently uh I found out that uh one the same brand I've been using for years called Godox. They've really come up in the scene in terms of their impression. I think for a long time, they were just considered like knockoffs. And now they're they're doing a lot of their own sort of stuff. And the one that really caught my eye is the IT thirty two. It's a flash. It's a little tiny flash. It's about a third of the size of a 600 series full size flash that I would carry around. It also doesn't use batteries, like double A batteries or whatever. It uses a built-in rechargeable USB-C battery and it has a little screen on it and it can be triggered by almost any of the GoDocks triggers, including the ones I already have for my Leica. And then the further interesting thing is one, it's $70. Nice little tiny flash. It's $70. And then currently they don't make a specific it what they use a system for these called X F This by stock doesn't. It's just a flash that sits on a table, I guess, and can be triggered by a remote. You then have to pick the the mount that is for your camera, Sony, Nikon, Canon, Fuji, whatever, and and their forthcoming Leica one. Um, and then that mount is actually magnetic and clicks into the bottom of the flash. So you can use the flash on camera and then just pull it off and it goes into remote mode. Pull it off, set it on a table, fire that way, hold it up with your hand like it's you know party style or whatever. It's the a really, really cool thing that kind of borrows elements from the light pixel lab flashes, which have their own pluses and minuses, and just standard um sort of strobes, on camera strobes. Yeah. And I can't report on how many flashes you'll get from a charge, but at seventy dollars and for the size, I could carry two of these at Watches and Wonders and have one charging off of a battery pack in my bag while I use the other. Yeah. So no double A's to worry about, no A chargers to worry about. Everything's USB-C. Everything can run off of a decent sized battery pack. I'm so, so impressed by this. I even uh just today, and I'll talk about the rest of this on a future episode. But just today I I also took delivery of a Rico GR3X. Uh shout out James P from the Slack who uh sold me his. I got it today. I put my Leica trigger on it, an X3L, put it on, put it in manual mode, and it immediately fired the flash. And like I was getting really, really good wrist shots around the office with this thing. So I'm I'm absolutely thrilled, and I would normally not spend a lot of time talking about a flash, but if you want to make that jump into the next level of watch photography where you're controlling the light, now I have something to recommend that's $70, not $400 or $200 and is relatively straightforward in in terms of how you use it. You roll a wheel one way and the power goes up and it gets brighter, and if you have too much light, you go back down. It's not like it's I wouldn't call it incredibly intuitive, but you could learn from a couple of YouTube videos. Uh so yeah, that's the IT thirty two. And then if they make an X five for your camera, all the better. Uh but tiny, useful, you know, really nice to to use with people and and that sort of thing if you wanted to get into that. But yeah, I'm uh I'm super happy with it. I had like my entire kit for this trip, the microphone that I'm talking into now, the recorder, my flash, my flash trigger, all fit into a watch case for a unimatic. It's all zippered up and just sits in my bag and it's just it gives me a light version of a kit. And now you add in the Rico and I can do a certain type of work, run and gun, shoe coverage, that sort of thing with real with very limited stress. So I wanted to shout that out. If you're not a photographer, you could could have skipped the last couple minutes and we can wrap up the show and give you a quote and send you on your way. But I'm pumped about it.
Jason Heaton Oh that's great I think we got enough camera nerds and the gearheads that uh I think we'll appreciate that. And you know, anytime you can downsize your kit without compromising the quality, it's uh that's great. So cool product. For sure. All right, that's does a show. That was a fun one. Action packed, lots of uh lots of interesting stuff there
James Stacy . So yeah, I mean uh moves and kittens and uh tons of watches and some camera flashes and a great video and all that sort of thing. But yeah, thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode or even consider supporting the show directly, which could get you into the TGN Slack or even your own new TGN sign NATO. Please visit thegreatnato.com. Music throw to siesta by Jazzar via the free music ar
Jason Heaton chive. And we leave you with this quote from Seneca who said, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.