Agfa Image Recorder (© Hospelt)

Agfa Image Recorder (1980)

This is a 1980 concept study of how Agfa saw the future of photography in the year 2000. They developed and built a mockup model of, what they thought, was the future of photography. Back then, a futuristic looking camera model, today a totally common gadget. You can see in the picture that it was dubbed "Bildrecorder" which translates to "Image Recorder". The size of a regular calculator. The camera featured an unknown size screen for reviewing images, directly after they were taken. There is no word in the article whether the screen also doubled as a viewfinder. Once the image was reviewed and deemed ok enough, the user pressed a button and the image was permanently stored on a removable memory module. 

When the user was at home he could remove the module and insert it into the "image recorder of his television set" to playback the taken images on a TV screen. The buttons on the "camera" are pretty strange too. They read:

First row from to to bottom, then second row, then third row:

Color/Manual
Red
Blue
Green

Forward
Backward
Delete

On/Off
Zoom
Save (or store)

We must not forget that this was a mockup model from 1980(!), a year before Sony announced the Mavica prototype still video camera. Personally I think it was a pretty impressive and realistic look into the future by Agfa there.

Specifications

  • Brand: Agfa
  • Model: Image Recorder
  • First mentioned: 1980
  • Marketed: no
  • MSRP: -
  • Imager Type: -
  • Resolution: -
  • Internal Storage: DRAM
  • External Storage: unknown memory module
  • Lens: -
  • Shutter: -
  • Aperture Range: -
  • LCD screen size: unknown size
  • Size: -
  • Weight: -
  • Remarks: -

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