The Agfa Rapid was my very first camera, by that I mean mine and not one I borrowed!
It used 35mm film but loaded into a Rapid cassette. The cassette also contained a key to set the film speed. The system was Agfa's answer to Kodak's instant load cartridge 126 and tended to produce better results not least because the film was held flat - a weakness on 126 which would curve in the centre at times. The film ran from one rapid cassette to another on the other side of the chamber. The great advantage in this compared to conventional 35mm was it was except for the shooting frame area light tight if the back was opened - so only a frame or maybe two were lost not the entire fim. On this model the image were 4x 4 [16 images] and film was available in B & W, colour slide and negative. Because I processed my own I had to come to an arrangement to obtain a few extra cassettes as my father used bulk film and this was loaded into the Agfa too.
The optics and exposure system on the camera was excellent. The meter is a selinuim cell traffic light red and green to go! You could overide it for flash . Focus was my three ket symbols as you can see above. Portraits, full body and mountains [oo]
This was a solid well made camera - the Rapid system was taken up by few manufacters sadly - Minolta was one - but Kodak 126 was the leader by a mile in the quick load race.
