Aeronautical and General Instruments Co. (AGI) was a British company based in Croydon, England, founded in 1915 as a maker of military instruments including a military aerial reflex camera. In 1946 it founded Agilux Ltd. to make cameras for the domestic market. One of its first products was this unusual and beautifully designed and made little 35mm camera. The company ceased camera production in the early 1960s.

The British-designed and made Agilux is an unusual design for1958. It’s a physically compact camera (4-1/2 inches by 2-3/4 inches by 2-1/2 inches) it has interchangeable lenses with a built-in viewfinder mask to change between lenses, it has a built-in, non-coupled, rangefinder and an extinction light meter. Most unusual of all is the thumb lever which runs anticlockwise down the side of the lens barrel and which both advances the film and cocks the shutter in one movement. Pressing the same lever a second time fires the shutter. So, when loaded with film, the camera is always cocked and ready to shoot.

There is also a frame counter above the lens which shows the number of pictures taken, by means of numbers presented upside down so they can be read easily with the camera in the shooting position. There is a film movement indicator at the left of the top plate to ensure that the film has engaged with the take-up spool. There is also a manual lever wind. The extinction light meter is no longer working.

The camera is fitted with its standard 45mm Agilux Anastigmat lens. It is also possible to fit an 85mm Agilux telephoto lens. Lenses are changed by means of a lever below the lens mounting and a telephoto mask slides over the viewfinder. This camera has a beautifully solid and balanced ‘feel’ to it and the standard of manufacture is very high. It works well both as a collector’s item in the glass cabinet and as a working camera capable of  taking some attractive photographs in the field using standard 35mm black and white or colour film.