Introducing another of my eclectic camera collection, – meet the iconic Agfa Karat 36, a strut-folding 35mm camera.

This cute little camera is no lightweight, not in performance, and not in bodyweight! Made of metal, the camera was German produced and made to last! It made its first appearance around 1935, and was discontinued in the 1950s. The original Karats used a specially fitting film cartridge, but from 1948 the design changed allowing the camera to use standard 35mm film cassettes. Mine is the latter.

The shutter, built into the lens is a synchro-Compur, cocked by advancing the film and released by means of a lever connecting the body to the lens. On this model the maximum lens aperture is f/2, stopping down to f/16, with a maximum sitter speed of 1/500th Second..

Focussing is a rangefinder system. I’d have liked to test the camera, and I loaded a short strip of 400ISO black and white film (12 exposures) onto a cassette – just for test purposes, but sadly on this one, the film transport mechanism  seems to be stuck. Still, its a nice piece of photographic ephemera to have and to show to fellow enthusiasts when they call.

The Agfa Karat 36 was not a cheap camera, – when new it would have sold at a price point equivalent to just over £1000 today. A good working model can fetch around £300 on eBay today.

Get more information at Camera-Wiki. or at CJ’s Classic Camera Collection.