The Beier Beroquick KB 135

So, here's my submission for the $50 camera competition. I took a very cheap camera, the Beier Beroquick KB 135, that I bought on ebay for 9€, so that means a bit more of 13$....

First of all, let's have a look at the camera:




Let's make a little historical point about the Beier factory, typical of many former GDR/DDR optical producers:
"Beier Kameraindustrie" was created 1923 near of Dresden (Freital) and made several box and folding cameras. After the 2nd world war the whole factory was dismantled by the Soviets and the remaining workers tried to make again some cameras with what was left. 1949 the "Kamerafabrik Woldemar Beier" was born again and could produce the Beirax II camera, folding camera inspired by the pre-war models. Unfortunately, Woldemar Beier died 1957 and the east german state took the control of the factory, and finally integrated it 1972 in the VEB Kamerawerk Freital (VEB stands for "Volkseigener Betrieb", that means that the factory belongs to the People, i.e. the socialist state...).

So, this little historical point to explain that the "socialist era" of Beier began really 1958, and that they turned into a "standardized mass production" of almost the same Beirette cameras from the 1970's to the end of the factory 1990. The first Beirette of this standard production was introduced 1974 and became later on the Beirette VSN or, for the export version, the Beroquick KB135 (which is the one I have)

What can we say about the camera itself? Well, it's a cheap camera mainly built of plastic and light metal, surely not the result of a high technolgy research in optical production, but with some nice features that alows you to shoot easily in every situation.
This camera has a Meritar 2,8/45mm lens with only 4 speeds (1/125, 1/60, 1/30 and B) and 7 different diaphragm settings from 2,8 to 22. The focus ring is on the front and goes from 0,6m with precise positions until 2m (0,7-0,8-0,9-1,2-1,5m) and then 3-5-10m to infinity. The viewfinder is tinted in yellow and has parallax correction marks. What shows that this camera was intended for a popular use is that the technical indications of speed and aperture are shown on one side of the lens but you have these 4 nice little weather icons on the top of the lens (for the aperture) and on the other side the DIN/ASA settings (for the speed), that means that you don't need a specific knowledge to choose your speed & aperture, just follow the weather icons and your film speed.... And you can use a flash with synchro at 1/30.
Very simple indeed and ok to make pictures even if the speed is a bit limited and that the light weight of the cam shows that there is mostly plastic... but the whole construction is fine, the setting rings make a precise "click" on each position as well as the shutter (shutter button on the right side of the lens like all Beirette 35 mm cameras).

Let's see now the results in pictures. I rarely had very sharp shots with this camera, the best position seems to be the closest one (at 0,6m) and the rest of the shots are less or more "blurry", because of the low shutter speed or simply because the lens isn't really as sharp as that. But what can you expect of a such cheap camera intended for the mass production of the socialist people of former GDR? Well, if you accept this unsharpness, you can have some really nice shots with a typical 70's mood, you even can have the impression that your shots were taken in these times, and that has a true "charm" and gives your shots something "unique" and creative...!

To add something more, and to be in the spirit of this "low-cost" photo competition, I took an old expired Fuji Sensia 200 slide film (expired 05/2004, that the guy of my photolab gave me....) and x-processed it. I took my camera with me the whole day, shot the roll from the bright morning to the evening. I went to a nice little village of the Cote d'Azur, called La Turbie, and then went to the beach in "Cap d'Ail", finishing the day by eating in a restaurant near of the beach..
So, enough talked, here are the shots, the whole roll in order of shooting: