The Beaumat – “Beauty Camera” of Japan – c1960
Americans were crazy about “automatic” stuff in 1960. Automatic washers, automatic transmissions, etc..
The Beaumat is an “automatic” camera.
If something had the letters “auto,” or “mat” or “matic,” it was modern and cool. This fact was not lost on Beauty camera.
The Beaumat is a classic example of using one of those letter combinations to form a meaningless name for something.
“Beau ?” As in boyfriend ? “Beau” as in Beau Brummel ?
I’m guessing it’s sort of a Japenglish name. English, being the insane language that it is, produces multiple sounds for the same letter combinations.
“Beau” can be “bow” or it can be “byoo” as in “Beauty.” So I guess this camera could be a “Byoomat.”
The rangefinder works great if you’re taking pictures at noon during an atomic weapon detonation. Otherwise it’s as dim as my brother-in -law.
The selenium thing around the lens feeds the match-needle meter. You frame the photo and focus through the viewfinder. Then you lower the camera and read the needle thing. Then you rotate either the shutter speed or iris thing. Then you trip the shutter. See ? Automatic.
That’s a very cool meter housing, isn’t it ? It looks like a motorcycle headlamp.
The film advance/shutter mechanism has an odd quirk that’s really a pain in the ass. After you advance the film, you have to move the film advance back to the position shown here. It’s about a quarter inch. If you don’t, the shutter won’t trip.
I forgot to do so twelve times when I used the Beaumat to shoot a roll of twelve exposure Kodak Gold 200.
“Daddy, why does that man say those bad words before he takes a pitcher ?”
