THIS IS one of those cameras that obviously
seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s almost as if, one fine
day in 1958 or 1959, one of Agfa’s designers with some time on his
hands was out taking pictures with a Silette and thought it would be nice
to give it reflex viewing without going to the complications of the big,
chunky Agfaflex SLR. So he went back to his drawing board, sketched out
a Silette with a bigger Prontor shutter, put a second matched Apotar lens
inside the rim, put a waist level viewfinder on top and extended the body
to hold it all. There wasn't room for the wind-on lever at the top so
he put it on the bottom.
Then a stylist looked over his shoulder and sketched out a squat coffin-shaped front panel with a hangover of Art-deco pattern on it. Thus enthused, the designer persuaded Gauthier to produce the big Prontor he needed, put his heart and soul into it and produced a beautifully engineered oddity, the 35mm TLR Reflex Silette, which the marketing people immediately shortened to Flexilette and launched in 1960.
All right, I’ve got a fertile imagination, and it probably didn’t happen anything like that, but however the idea came about it resulted in such an oddity that when I saw one in excellent plus condition for sale at an attractive price I couldn’t resist it. I’ve never regretted buying it even though I don’t find it the fastest nor most convenient of cameras to use. The controls don’t ‘fall naturally to hand’, to use a phrase beloved of journalists who review cameras. I was a good halfway through the first roll of film before I found the best way to hold it so that I could concentrate on the picture and not the camera.
When I got used to it, though, I began to like it more and more. The waist-level viewing screen is very bright and clear without having heavy Fresnel rings to put you off the picture. There’s a pop-up magnifier for critical focusing, and a split-image central spot, both of which help my old eyes no end to get things in sharp focus. If you want to view at eye level after you’ve focused, the optical finder built into the top hood is equally bright and clear, but if you haven’t used the magnifier you have to remember to flip it up out of the way or you think your eyesight’s suddenly gone peculiar.
The camera’s quite heavy, which helps guard against camera shake, and the release and shutter work so smoothly that I had no problems with hand held shots at 1/15 sec either because the light was dim or because I wanted a small aperture for depth of field. Wind-on and shutter cocking is by a stubby lever underneath on the left hand side. This is smooth enough in action, but not particularly convenient to use. The drawback was that Flexilette hadn’t got interchangeable lenses, but if you wanted them you bought the Agfaflex instead.
Maybe the Flexilette was too unusual to have wide appeal. It couldn't have sold all that well because you don't often see them around. Maybe it was also because it didn't have a pentaprism, all the rage in the early 1960s. At any rate, Agfa probably thought so, and after a year or so dropped the Flexilette in favour of the Optima Reflex, basically a Flexilette with a pentaprism instead of a waist level finder. If they'd left it at that it would have been fine, but I suppose they wanted to have all the latest gadgets so they stuck a selenium cell on the front of the pentaprism and coupled it to the shutter to give automatic metering. Probably they hadn't got room to keep the shutter release on the top plate, so they made it a less convenient trigger on the side of the lens housing.
I haven't got an Optima Reflex, but I once borrowed one for a day. The results were much the same as my Flexilette, and the coupled meter seemed accurate enough, but I just didn't take to it. Probably my prejudices showing. Maybe I'll find an Optima Reflex at the right price one day and revise my opinion of it.
Then a stylist looked over his shoulder and sketched out a squat coffin-shaped front panel with a hangover of Art-deco pattern on it. Thus enthused, the designer persuaded Gauthier to produce the big Prontor he needed, put his heart and soul into it and produced a beautifully engineered oddity, the 35mm TLR Reflex Silette, which the marketing people immediately shortened to Flexilette and launched in 1960.
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All right, I’ve got a fertile imagination, and it probably didn’t happen anything like that, but however the idea came about it resulted in such an oddity that when I saw one in excellent plus condition for sale at an attractive price I couldn’t resist it. I’ve never regretted buying it even though I don’t find it the fastest nor most convenient of cameras to use. The controls don’t ‘fall naturally to hand’, to use a phrase beloved of journalists who review cameras. I was a good halfway through the first roll of film before I found the best way to hold it so that I could concentrate on the picture and not the camera.
When I got used to it, though, I began to like it more and more. The waist-level viewing screen is very bright and clear without having heavy Fresnel rings to put you off the picture. There’s a pop-up magnifier for critical focusing, and a split-image central spot, both of which help my old eyes no end to get things in sharp focus. If you want to view at eye level after you’ve focused, the optical finder built into the top hood is equally bright and clear, but if you haven’t used the magnifier you have to remember to flip it up out of the way or you think your eyesight’s suddenly gone peculiar.
The camera’s quite heavy, which helps guard against camera shake, and the release and shutter work so smoothly that I had no problems with hand held shots at 1/15 sec either because the light was dim or because I wanted a small aperture for depth of field. Wind-on and shutter cocking is by a stubby lever underneath on the left hand side. This is smooth enough in action, but not particularly convenient to use. The drawback was that Flexilette hadn’t got interchangeable lenses, but if you wanted them you bought the Agfaflex instead.
Maybe the Flexilette was too unusual to have wide appeal. It couldn't have sold all that well because you don't often see them around. Maybe it was also because it didn't have a pentaprism, all the rage in the early 1960s. At any rate, Agfa probably thought so, and after a year or so dropped the Flexilette in favour of the Optima Reflex, basically a Flexilette with a pentaprism instead of a waist level finder. If they'd left it at that it would have been fine, but I suppose they wanted to have all the latest gadgets so they stuck a selenium cell on the front of the pentaprism and coupled it to the shutter to give automatic metering. Probably they hadn't got room to keep the shutter release on the top plate, so they made it a less convenient trigger on the side of the lens housing.
I haven't got an Optima Reflex, but I once borrowed one for a day. The results were much the same as my Flexilette, and the coupled meter seemed accurate enough, but I just didn't take to it. Probably my prejudices showing. Maybe I'll find an Optima Reflex at the right price one day and revise my opinion of it.