Agfa Selectronic
With Selectronic , Agfa has named two camera series, on the one hand the viewfinder cameras with automatic timing from the Camerawerk in Munich, and on the other hand SLR cameras made by Chinon .
Viewfinder cameras
Selectronic sensor
The Selectronic Sensor, released in 1970, was derived from the Agfa Optima 500 Sensor and always had black housing covers, which was considered professional throughout the 1970s. It was a time machine. The aperture had to be preselected on the lens, then the exposure control set the appropriate time and indicated it with a pointer in the viewfinder. This camera also had a self-timer. Regardless of its quite expensive retail price of 350 DM, it only had one three-lens lens, the Apotar, which was also used in the Optima.
Selectronic S sensor
At the same time, the luxury version Selectronic S appeared. With the Solinar 2.8, it was the only model in the entire series to have a four-lens lens, and an additional pointer for the aperture value and a range finder were reflected in its viewfinder. However, these refinements resulted in a quite high sales price of 450 DM.
Paratronic lock
The Selectronic Paratronic shutter, manufactured by Agfa itself, worked as follows: Pressing the sensor trigger mechanically released the two sectors of the shutter and switched on the exposure control. This caused the first sector to move by spring force, allowing light to fall on the film, while the second sector was held in place by an electromagnet until the control IC switched it off. Then the second sector stopped the light. A capacitor was connected to the control IC and charged during exposure. This charging time determined the exposure time, whereby the charging current depended on the photoresistor and therefore proceeded faster with increasing brightness. Since Cds cells were much more sensitive than selenium cells, the exposure time could be extended to 15 s. This made it possible to easily take night shots, even taking into account changes in brightness during exposure.
The name Paratronic is derived from the Parat series .
distribution
The two cameras were primarily aimed at amateurs to use as a secondary camera. The much smaller Rollei 35 was so competitive that only a few copies were sold. However, Agfa has already been able to test the electronic shutter control in series production, it then appeared in the Agfamatic Pocket models and in all variants of the new Optima generation from 1976.
Single lens reflex cameras
prehistory
For some time, Agfa did not offer SLR cameras with interchangeable lenses, after SLR models, which were not insignificant but were sold less often compared to other companies, around 1960. However, after 35mm SLR cameras became increasingly popular in the second half of the 1970s, it was decided to do something again to offer. Since building your own would have been tedious and expensive, three existing cameras from a Japanese manufacturer were modified and these were added to the range in 1980 under their own name. This approach was not unusual; mail-order companies in particular had been doing this for a long time, for example Photo Porst . The selected models were not only available from the manufacturer Chinon under their own names, but also as Revueflex from Foto Quelle. However, due to the design change (Schlagheck-Schultes design, like other AGFA models before), the models that Chinon manufactured for AGFA were significantly different in appearance than the Revueflex, which had only been given a new name, plus the typical AGFA sensor -Trigger that the company had built into the Chinon cameras.
Selectronic 1
The simplest version was the Chinon CM 4, a semi-automatic machine with light-emitting diodes in the viewfinder for correct exposure setting. It had a metal focal plane shutter that ranged from 1 s to the 1/1000 s that was common at the time. With its familiar sensor trigger, the Selectronic was immediately recognizable as an Agfa camera. Agfa rarely offered lenses, but with the widely used Pentax K type bayonet, many third-party lenses could be bought.
Selectronic 2
The Selectronic 2 corresponded to the Chinon CA 4, was a time machine and otherwise not very different from the entry-level model in terms of its equipment.
Selectronic 3
The Selectronic 3 corresponded to the Chinon CE and had a winder connection for a motorized film transport that worked with 2 frames / s. In addition, their shutter speeds reached up to 8 s and you could switch off the automatic aperture, i.e. choose any time and aperture.
distribution
Agfa intended to sell its SLR cameras at a fixed price. Although fixed prices were no longer permitted in Germany since 1974, it was possible to get around this with sales agencies, a procedure that was also used by Telefunken. Such agencies were actually only intended for dealers who only sold a single brand, as was the case in particular with coffee ( Tchibo , Eduscho ). If part of the sales area was now available exclusively for Agfa, it could still be enforced, albeit legally controversial. However, this resulted in a higher price than Photo Quelle asked for. And since the only difference between an Agfa Selectronic and the Revue counterpart was the sensor trigger, Agfa finally had to give up fixed prices on May 2, 1982.
In addition, the peak of sales of SLR cameras was in 1979 and had already been exceeded when the Selectronic was presented. Agfa’s customers also expected higher quality cameras, so the entry into the system camera market turned out to be a failure.
