Agfa
Contents
company
AGFA was the abbreviation for Actien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation, given in 1873 to a company that had been founded in Berlin in the year 1867. They produced chemicals for photography. When Agfa got the Rietzschel camera works in Munich from Bayer in 1925 they badged all Rietzschel products with their Agfa rhombus. In 1926 they 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 had been introduced, and Ansco got the license for producing Agfa products for the American market.
In 1930 the first Agfa Box camera for 6x9 format exposures on roll film had been produced. In the following year they popularized photography in Germany by selling the Box 44 for a dumping price of 4 Reichsmark. Of course they got good earnings afterwards by selling their Agfa 120 roll films. In 1937 they came out with their first camera for 35mm film.
After WWII they improved their prewar models and introduced the new 35mm camera Solinette. In 1954 they modernized their camera design when they began their Silette series. In 1956 they introduced the world's first manufactured camera with automatic exposure control, the Automatic 66 .
In 1968 Agfa introduced their red sensor point, a round button made of red foil in a metal ring. This became the shutter release button for the most of all further Agfa camera models.
In the beginning 1980ies Agfa produced their last cameras. The new models of the Selectronic series had been produced by Chinon. Agfa gave up camera production in 1983.
cameras
110mm pocket
- 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
35mm
folding
- Karat
- Solinette
- Super Solinette
fixed lens
rangefinder, interchangeable lens
SLR
- Colorflex
- Ambiflex
- Selectaflex
TLR
- Flexilette
- Optima Reflex
half frame
- Parat
- Paramat
120 film
folding
- Agfa Automatic 66
- Isolette II
- Agfa Isolette III
- Super Isolette
- Agfa PB 20
- Agfa Record I
- Agfa Record II
- Agfa Record III
rigid
box
- Box 44
Links
- [http://www.orphancameras.com Listing of many Agfa camera manuals in PDF format. Site also includes old camera mail order catalogs from 40's and 50's listing prices and abilities.
- Agfa page at Collection G. Even's site
- german source on Agfa history]