Agfa Ambi Silette – First Roll Reflections

During a recent visit to a favorite antique store, I went to my favorite display case which were filled with cameras. One never knows what will be there and so it’s fun to peruse for interesting cameras of the past.  This time, the case was filled with many Nikons, Canon AE1 and a Canonet QL17.  However, one camera caught my eye.  The Agfa Ambi Silette.  I knew nothing about this camera but it was a beautiful hunk of silver metal in such great shape that my curiosity peaked.  I took out my phone and started researching this camera.

The Agfa Ambi Silette was first produced in 1957 and discontinued in 1961 making this camera about the same age as me!  The camera is a rangefinder.  Some have called it a poor man’s Leica. The camera has a spring loaded cover which protects the rangefinder.  It also has frame lines for 35, 50 and 90mm.  Its Synchro-Compur leaf shutter fires at speeds from 1/500th of a second down to one second, plus Bulb mode for long exposures. The standard lens, an Agfa Color-Solinar 50mm f/2.8, while not speedy, works with the relatively slow maximum shutter speed well enough. The aperture stops down in half-stop clicks to a minimum value of f/22. The film advance automatically cocks the shutter, advances the film, and sets the frame counter. There’s a frame-line selector on the top, a tripod mount on the bottom

Still in the store, holding the camera in my hands was a joy.  It’s pretty small, smaller than a Leica M body.  The camera looked to be in beautiful shape.  The aperture blades on the mounted 35mm lens were clean, looking almost new.  Lo and behold, the camera was sitting on an old brown case and inside were two more lenses, a 50 and 90mm.  Those lenses were equally beautiful and great shape.  I decided to make the purchase and for $75, I felt like I came home with something of a real find.

As soon as I got home, I loaded a roll of Kodak Portra 400 and on a dog walk, shot the entire roll. Along the way, I found that the rangefinder will need some tuning.  I could not get the rangefinder patch to align from about 30 ft to infinity.  However, shooting stopped down and estimating those distances turned out images in focus.  The rewind knob is not ideal.  It’s a simple knob without a lever and pretty stiff.  I thought I would get a blister rewinding the film.  Hopefully both of these issues can be resolved.

With the roll exposed, I was excited to see the results.  My current home film development kit is currently set up for ECN2 processing so I had my local store develop and scan the images. Opening the first few scans on my computer, I was so pleasantly surprised.  Images had great color and contrast and they were sharp. Again, my mind was thinking that I had a real find.  This is a camera that I didn’t even know existed and looking online, there’s not a whole lot out there. And yet, looks like it can produce wonderful images. I can’t wait to shoot this camera a lot more.

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