Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Canon AF35ML

Canon · Fixed lens · 24×36mm on 35mm film · 1981

Also known as: Canon AF35ML · Canon Super Sure Shot · Canon Autoboy Super · キヤノン オートボーイスーパー

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
AF35ML / Super Sure Shot / Autoboy Super 35mm compact 1981–1984 — No figure published. Canon's museum gives the date, price and specification and no volume; no secondary source supplies one
AF35ML Quartz Date 35mm compact 1983–1984 — —
  1. Canon's museum gives the lens as 40mm f/1.9 in five elements in five groups, the release as July 1981 at ¥47,800 with the case a further ¥2,000, and the Quartz Date as September 1983 at ¥5,000 more. It gives no production figure, and none has been found elsewhere.
  2. Not an AF35M with a faster lens. Same maker, same line, same years, and Canon's museum files them side by side — but the lens changed class (f/1.9 against f/2.8, five elements against four, 40mm against 38mm) and the autofocus changed PRINCIPLE, from an active infrared beam to a passive CCD comparison.
  3. The 'fastest lens on any autofocus compact for a decade' line is the reviewers' — Eckman's and 35mmc's — not Canon's, and it holds only until the f/1.9 Natura Black of 2005 if one counts a 24mm as the same kind of thing. It is carried as a reviewers' judgement.
  4. The only period price outside Japan found is a September 1981 Popular Photography list of just under $300.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The autofocus PRINCIPLE reversed from the AF35M's: passive CCD triangulation in place of an active infrared beam, with a focus lock the earlier camera lacked
  • Programmed electromagnetic shutter spanning EV 4 to EV 17 — f/1.9 at 1/4 s to f/18 at 1/400 s, per Canon
  • Projected finder frames with automatic parallax correction, and an electronic beeper warning of camera shake

AF35ML / Super Sure Shot / Autoboy Super:

  • Canon Lens 40mm 1:1.9 — the fastest lens Canon ever fitted to a compact, and a 49mm filter thread, which almost no point-and-shoot has
  • Two CCD autofocus windows rather than the AF35M's infrared emitter and receiver
  • Super Sure Shot in the Americas, Autoboy Super in Japan, AF35ML elsewhere

AF35ML Quartz Date:

  • Databack version, September 1983, at a ¥5,000 premium (Canon Camera Museum)

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film
Shutter
electromagnetic programmed leaf shutter · programmed from f/1.9 at 1/4 s (EV 4) to f/18 at 1/400 s (EV 17) — Canon's published span, so the top speed is 1/400
Meter
CdS-driven programme across EV 4–17, with a shake warning that sounds when the programme has chosen a speed too slow to hand-hold.
Country
Japan

What reviewers say

History

Eighteen months after the AF35M made the autofocus compact a mass product, Canon put a 40mm f/1.9 into the same kind of body. That aperture is the whole camera. Nothing else in the category came close for a decade — the Contax T’s Sonnar was an f/2.8, the Yashica T4’s Tessar an f/3.5 — and a 49mm filter thread on the front of a point-and-shoot is a detail that tells you Canon knew who would buy it.

The autofocus changed with the lens, and not in the direction the AF35M had established. The earlier camera threw a near-infrared beam and triangulated on the return, which works in the dark and on blank walls. The AF35ML compares two images through a CCD — a passive system, with a focus lock the AF35M lacked. Mike Eckman reads this as a step backwards, slower and less certain in low light on exactly the camera whose fast lens was meant for low light, and notes that Canon had earlier criticised passive systems for that reason. Canon’s museum entry describes the system and does not defend the choice.

The rest is on Canon’s own record and nowhere else. July 1981 at ¥47,800, plus ¥2,000 for the case. A programmed electromagnetic shutter running from f/1.9 at a quarter of a second to f/18 at 1/400 — so the top speed is 1/400, which on an f/1.9 lens in daylight is the compromise a fast aperture forces. Projected framelines that correct for parallax, and a beeper that sounds when the programme has chosen a speed too slow to hold. A Quartz Date version followed in September 1983 at ¥5,000 more. No production figure has been published, and none of the writers who have handled the camera has found one.

Both the optics and the focusing principle changed between the AF35M and this camera. Canon’s museum files the two cameras side by side, and the names run in parallel — Sure Shot and Super Sure Shot, Autoboy and Autoboy Super — but they are different designs wearing the same badge, and the f/1.9 is the one collectors mean when they say “the good Sure Shot.”

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Canon AF35ML
Canon AF35ML with the 40mm f/1.9 — John Nuttall from Hampshire, United Kingdom, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Canon AF35ML? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $100 across 52 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-06 (middle half $85–$120). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

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Listings updated 2026-09-05. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Canon AF35M · Konica Hexar AF · Fujifilm Natura

Sources (4)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.