As a budget offering, the results you get from this Fuji-made Agfa 200 film were always absolutely fine, at worst. A lot of people even thought they went over and above what you’d expect for the price. Another common failure in the post-war Karats are pinholes in bellows. It is very difficult to source replacements and thus temporary repairs must be performed.

Agfa Vista Plus 200 getting discontinued was a real shame, although possibly not unexpected seeing as Fujifilm were the people making it. Agfa Vista used to be a good alternative if you didn’t want the sunny hues of Colorplus, which not everyone would. When it was a budget film, you could choose based on the look you wanted. While that low cost used to be a shared attribute though, it’s now another difference.

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The Agfa Ambi Silette was first produced in 1957 and discontinued in 1961, a remarkably short four-year lifecycle made even more remarkable when we realize just how good it is to shoot. Shooting the Ambi Today At the time, Kodak wasn’t the only company producing 35mm film however. Kodak’s biggest competitor was AGFA, and like Kodak, they also made their own cameras. Since all Kodak did was create a cassette for existing 35mm film, AGFA decided to do the same thing. Their competing format was called Karat film, and the first camera that used it was the AGFA Karat. Like Kodak’s film, Karat film used standard double perforated 35mm film. Unlike Kodak’s format however, Karat film worked in a cassette to cassette transport and didn’t need to be rewound at the end of a roll. Film would be fed from a supply cassette directly into a take up cassette immediately after an exposure was made, and there it would remain until it needed to be developed. Common observations tend to point out good sharpness and detail in mid-tones and shadows, although highlights are prone to being a touch blown out. The grain is there but not overbearing in any way; especially when you consider you’re shooting, you know, film. Regardless of either view, it was just better when there were more options available to everyone. One less budget film on the market is not a good thing for the present and could be a sign of things to come in the future. What if someone else decides to follow Fuji out of the film door?

But there’s also a joy of film photography. The chance shot, the authenticity – you just feel more hands on with a film camera. But it is more work, there’s no denying that. Although both Instamatic 126 and AGFA Rapid film are no longer made, since both use film that is the same width as current 35mm film, they can be easily reloaded and used. AGFA Rapid cameras are very easy to reload as they simply require bulk 35mm film to be pushed into an empty cassette in the dark and loaded as normal. If you own a Rapid camera and have some bulk 35mm film, two empty Rapid, or even Karat cassettes, this is something you can do yourself.

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And even considering these unmitigated disasters of ergonomics and design (I’m being dramatic), the ways in which the Agfa Ambi Silette succeeds far outweigh the ways in which it fails. Sadly for AGFA, shortly after the time when Karat film and cameras hit the market, war broke out in Europe and people’s attention turned away from new developments in film. Kodak had just enough of a leg up in popularity that by the time Word War II ended, most everyone had forgotten about Karat film. Although AGFA would resume production of both their Karat camera and film, they would concede defeat in 1949 by releasing a variant of their Karat camera called the Karat 36 that used Kodak’s type 135 cassette. AGFA would continue to produce both versions of the Karat camera for a short while before abandoning Karat film altogether. I stuffed varying lengths of Tri-X Pan into the Rapid cassette, and “adventures in the dark” began. My findings? If you stuffed too long a strip of 135 film into the Rapid cassette, it would bind, the film would tear, and film chips would damage the camera. Eventually, I returned to the exciting world of the 35mm SLR, but the Minolta 24 Rapid is somewhere in storage, ready to be an interesting compact film camera again.;) Sometime in the late 1960’s, when I was attending college, I had added a Minolta Autopak 700 to my otherwise-Nikon 35mm set of cameras. It was OK, cheaper than a Kodak Instamatic 700/800, with similar features. The limits of Kodacolor-X/Kodachrome/Ektachrome/Verichrome Pan in 126 became apparent, since “available darkness” photos with ASA 80-125 film was limited, even with electronic flash. The Karat IV upgrades the Karat 36 with a more conventional superimposed rangefinder and revised top cover.