Agfa

Company

AGFA was the abbreviation for Actien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation, given in 1873 to a company that had been founded in Berlin in 1867. It produced chemicals for photography. When Agfa got the Rietzschel camera works in Munich from Bayer in 1925 it badged all Rietzschel products with its Agfa rhombus. In 1926 it introduced the first real Agfa camera, the Standard. In 1927 the name Rietzschel disappeared from the products. In that year the successful Billy camera series was introduced, and Ansco got the license to produce Agfa products for the American market.

In 1930 the first Agfa Box camera for 6×9 format exposures on roll film was produced. In the following year it popularized photography in Germany by dumping the Box 44 for 4 Reichsmark, easily recouping its losses afterwards by selling Agfa 120 roll films. In 1937 it came out with its first camera for 35mm film.

After WWII Agfa improved its prewar models and introduced the new 35mm Solinette. In 1954 it modernized its camera design with the Silette series. In 1956 it introduced the world's first manufactured camera with automatic exposure control, the Automatic 66.

In 1968 Agfa introduced its red sensor point, a round button made of red foil in a metal ring. This became the shutter release button for the most further Agfa camera models.

In the early 1980s Agfa produced its last cameras. The new models of the Selectronic series were manufactured by Chinon. Agfa gave up camera production in 1983.

35mm film cameras

Folding

• Karat
• Solinette
• Super Solinette

Fixed lens

• Optima
• Optima Sensor
• Silette
• Super Silette

Rangefinder, interchangeable lens

• Ambi-Silette

SLR

• Colorflex
• Ambiflex
• Selectaflex

TLR

• Flexilette
• Optima Reflex

Half frame

• Parat
• Paramat

120 film cameras

Folding

• Agfa Automatic 66
• Isolette II
• Agfa Isolette III
• Super Isolette
• Agfa PB 20
• Agfa Record I
• Agfa Record II
• Agfa Record III

Rigid

• Clack
• Click I
• Click II
• Isola
• Isoly

Box

• Box 44

110 film cameras

• Agfamatic 508 sensor
• Agfamatic 1000 sensor
• Agfamatic 2000 sensor
• Agfamatic 2008 sensor
• Agfamatic 3000 sensor
• Agfamatic 4008 sensor
• Optima 5000 sensor
• Optima 6000 sensor
• AGFA easy

Links

• Orphancameras, with many Agfa camera manuals in PDF format. The site also includes old camera mail order catalogues from the 40's and 50's listing prices and abilities.
• Agfa page at Collection G. Even's site
• German source on Agfa history, at the die-Karat.de website