The Optima is a family of 35mm cameras made by Agfa in the 1960s and beyond.
The original Optima was in 1959 the first manufactured camera with programmed exposure, obtained by a selenium-meter driven mechanical system. Moving its shutter release lever halfway down triggers a mechanical system that obtains aperture value and speed from the electromechanical part of the meter. The system mirrors a green or a red signal into the viewfinder when the camera catches appropriate exposure settings from the meter or not. The does not require any batteries Template:Citation-needed. As camera with fully automatic exposure it was only preceded by a handcrafted model of Kodak in the 1930s. The Paxette electromatic of 1959 may have appeared at the same time as the Agfa Optima, but it was a simpler camera with just automatic aperture.
The Optima had the 'shutter lever' on the left (facing away from the operator). The lever was not for the shutter, but to operate the auto exposure, you have a button on the top to fire the shutter. There is also a wheel on the bottom right that opens or closes the flash connection aperture. When the flash aperture is closed, the auto exposure lever will not function. The camera also had a wheel on the top that could be set to the film value (ASA or DIN).
Models[]
- Optima (original) (1959)
- Optima I (1960)
- Optima Ia (1962)
- Optima II (1962)
- Optima II S (1962)
- Optima III (1960)
- Optima III S (1961)
- Optima 500 S (1963
- Optima 500 (1964)
- Optima 500 SN (1966)
- Optima Reflex (1960)
The Optima name was continued with the Optima Sensor range.
Links[]
- The original Optima camera series at ukcamera.com [1]
- on www.collection-appareils.fr by Sylvain Halgand
- Agfa Optima
- Agfa Optima 1535
- Agfa Optima 200 sensor
- Agfa Optima 335 electronic sensor
- Agfa Optima 500 sensor
- Agfa Optima 500 sensor
- Agfa Optima 5000
- Agfa Optima 500s
- Agfa Optima 535 electronic sensor
- Agfa Optima Flash sensor
- Agfa Optima I
- Agfa Optima Ia
- Agfa Optima II
- Agfa Optima III
- Agfa Optima IIIS
- Agfa Optima IIS
- Agfa Optima Rapid 125 C
- Agfa Optima Rapid 250
- Agfa Optima Rapid 250v
- Agfa Optima Rapid 500V
- Agfa Optima Reflex
- Agfa Optima Sensor
- Agfa Optima-Parat