The Agfa Variomat was an exposure frame for the photo laboratory. With it, the exposure of the photo paper in the positive process could be automated for the first time. For this purpose he had a built-in exposure meter in the housing. A complex circuit of electron tubes and relays switched off the darkroom lighting and switched on the enlarger at the same time. If the device was carefully calibrated, the Variomat automatically switched off the enlarger and switched on the darkroom lighting after the correct exposure time had been reached.
At the time, this represented revolutionary facilitation and state-of-the-art photo laboratory technology. The Agfa Variomat C model was already suitable for the Agfacolor positive process – the processing of color images.
The trademark was registered in 1954.[1]