Agfa

Agfa film and development ad on an old drugstore window
Agfa cameras

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. Most famous is the film developer Rodinal, introduced in 1892 and continued for 115 years. When Agfa obtained 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 Agfa licensed Ansco to manufacture its 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 brought out 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 medium format camera Agfa Automatic 66. In 1959 a 35mm viewfinder camera with autoexposure button followed, the Optima. In the mid-1960s Agfa tried to establish its own film system for 24×24 mm exposures in the market, the Rapid film cartridges.

In 1968 Agfa introduced its red sensor point, a round membrane made of red foil and framed with a metal ring. Depending on the camera type a mechanical or an electromechanical shutter release button was hidden under the flexible membrane. Since then this touch-key-like construction became the shutter release button and the characteristic eye-catcher of the most Agfa camera models.

In Germany Agfa had a huge success with its popular "Ritsch-Ratsch" pocket cameras. A whole series of these Agfamatic cameras for type 110 film was launched twice, the first series using magicubes and the second, flipflash. Of course these cameras had the red sensor point as shutter release button.

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. All later Agfa cameras were OEM products.

35mm film cameras

Folding

• Karat
• Solinette
• Super Solinette

Fixed lens

• Optima
• Optima Sensor
• Selecta
• Silette
• Super Silette

fixed lens, half-frame

• Parat
• Parat-I
• Paramat

Rangefinder, interchangeable lens

• Ambi Silette

SLR

• Colorflex
• Ambiflex
• Selectaflex

TLR

• Flexilette
• Optima Reflex

120 film cameras

Folding

• Agfa Automatic 66
• Isolette II
• Agfa Isolette III
• Super Isolette
• Agfa PB 20
• Agfa Billy Jgetar 8.8
• Agfa Record I
• Agfa Record II
• Agfa Record III
• Agfa Billy Record

Rigid

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

Box

• Box 44
• Box 50 / Synchro Box

Rapid film cameras

• Iso-Rapid I
• Iso-Rapid IF
• Iso-Rapid Ic
• Iso-Rapid C
• Isoflash Rapid
• Isoflash Rapid C
• Isomat Rapid
• Isomat Rapid C
• Moto-Rapid C
• Optima Rapid 250
• Silette Rapid I
• Silette Rapid F
• Silette Rapid L
• Optima Rapid 100C
• Optima Rapid 125C
• Optima Rapid 150
• Optima Rapid 250V
• Optima Rapid 500V

126 film cameras

• IsoPak
• IsoPak C
• IsoPak Ci
• Autostar
• Autostar X-126
• Agfamatic
• Agfamatic X-126
• Agfamatic 126
• Agfamatic 50
• Agfamatic 50S
• Agfamatic 55C
• Agfamatic 100
• Agfamatic 108
• Agfamatic 200
• Agfamatic 208
• Agfamatic 300

110 film cameras

The series 1000/2000/... accepted magicubes.

The series 508/1008/... accepted flipflash.

The sophisticated models had a special hot shoe for the Agfamatic Lux flashes.

• Agfamatic 1000 pocket sensor
• Agfamatic 2000 pocket sensor
• Agfamatic 3000 pocket sensor
• Agfamatic 4000 pocket sensor
• Agfamatic 508 pocket sensor
• Agfamatic 1008 tele pocket sensor
• Agfamatic 2008 pocket sensor
• Agfamatic 3008 pocket sensor
• Agfamatic 4008 pocket sensor
• Agfamatic 5008 makro pocket sensor
• Agfamatic 6008 makro pocket sensor
• Optima 5000 pocket sensor
• Optima 6000 pocket sensor
• Agfa Easy
• Agfa Autostar pocket

APS film cameras

• Agfa Futura Af zoom

Links

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