AGFA LAUNCHED its Optima range in 1959, and the Optima II that I’ve got a year later. There’s an f/2.8 Color Apotar lens with front cell focusing by three click-stop symbols indicating scenic, groups and a double-head portrait.
     
      The front turns further to just a blank part of the symbol ring, but if you look underneath you find it’s stopped at a close-up setting of 1m or 3 ¼ ft. Some makers use a single head symbol for this, but Agfa didn't on the Optima. The brightline viewfinder’s got a couple of small lines just inside the top to indicate the parallax error on close-upshots.

Too easy to use if you like to have complete     control

  The lens is set in a Prontormator shutter with only three settings, B, a lightning flash symbol and a red A. On A the exposure is entirely automatic. I don’t know the Prontormator shutter, but there’s a window for a selenium cell next to the viewfinder, and if you point the camera at the sky with the you get a small aperture on the five-bladed iris. Take it into a fairly dim light and you get a large aperture so I assume that it’s some form of trapped-needle metering with a single shutter speed. There’s a dial on the top plate for film speed setting but only up to 200 ASA.
     
      Whatever the system is it works quite well and seems to be reasonably accurate as I got a nicely exposed set of negatives taken both in sunlight and in fairly deep shade. When you look into the viewfinder a red dot changes to green if there’s enough light to take a picture. I don’t know the shutter speed, but it must be reasonably fast as there was no sign of camera shake.
     
      The release is a lever on the front plate alongside the lens. The top plate is uncluttered with just the ASA setting dial, a cable release socket, a slightly recessed accessory shoe and the rewind knob which retracts level with the top plate and pops up when you slide a little button alongside it. The exposure counter is on the back underneath the rear door. It’s a well made, quite heavy, somewhat bulky camera but it’s nice to handle and very easy to use, aimed at people who know nothing about photography.
     
      Too easy really if you’re the type of photographer who likes to be able to choose the aperture and shutter speed instead of having everything done for you and likes to focus by distance and not symbols.