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

Canon Dial 35

Canon · Fixed lens · 18×24 mm on 35mm film, vertical film travel, so the frame is landscape with the camera upright · 1963

Also known as: Canon Dial-35 · Canon Dial 35-2 · Bell & Howell Dial 35 · Bell and Howell Dial 35 · キヤノン ダイヤル35

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Dial 35 (1963) Half-frame 1963 — No figure published
Bell & Howell Dial 35 Half-frame 1963 — No figure published
Dial 35-2 (April 1968) Half-frame 1968 — No figure published
Dial Rapid (1965) Half-frame 1965 — No figure published
  1. Canon's museum documents both versions to the yen and the gram; what it does not give is production. Nobody does.
  2. The Bell & Howell badge is an American distribution arrangement, not a different camera. Mike Eckman notes it; the museum does not.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A vertical body with a cylinder hanging below it: the cylinder is both the grip and the key that winds the motor
  • CdS cells set in a ring around the lens, which is where the name comes from
  • Film runs top to bottom, so the half frame is horizontal when the camera is held upright — the opposite of a Pen

Dial 35 (1963):

  • Canon SE 28mm f/2.8, five elements in three groups, in a short wide barrel ringed by CdS cells — the 'dial'
  • Seiko-sha shutter, 1/30–1/250 and B, X sync; shutter-priority automatic exposure, ASA 8–500
  • Spring motor in the grip below: about 20 frames at 2 frames a second on a full wind
  • Engraved name on the top; 99 × 76 × 44 mm, 430 g

Bell & Howell Dial 35:

  • The same camera under Bell & Howell's name for the United States; the faceplate differs

Dial 35-2 (April 1968):

  • Black nameplate with the distance index on one plate, a hot shoe, a strap on the grip
  • 1.3 V mercury cell for the meter; ASA 10–1000; a longer-running spring; 410 g; 14,100 yen

Dial Rapid (1965):

  • A Dial built for Agfa's Rapid cassette (Canon Camera Museum)

Specifications

Format
18×24 mm on 35mm film, vertical film travel, so the frame is landscape with the camera upright · 72 exposures
Finder
Reversed Galilean, 0.42×, 90%, with match-needle pictographs for the zone focus · 0.42× magnification · 90% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
Seiko-sha leaf · 1/30 – 1/250 and B · flash sync X
Film advance
Clockwork spring motor wound by rotating the grip; about 20 frames per wind
Meter
CdS ring around the lens; shutter-priority automatic aperture with a pull-out button for manual aperture and flash
Motor drive
built-in spring motor
Weight
430 g
Dimensions
99 × 76 × 44 mm
Country
Japan

What reviewers say

History

Nine months after the Demi, Canon released a half-frame that looked like nothing else. The Dial 35 of November 1963 stands upright, its 28mm f/2.8 set in a short wide barrel ringed with CdS cells — the dial of the name — and a cylinder hanging beneath the body that is at once the grip and the key to a clockwork motor. Wind it and the camera advances itself for about twenty frames at two a second. The film runs top to bottom, so the half frame is horizontal with the camera held normally, which no Pen manages. It cost 13,800 yen in Japan and about $85 in America, where it was sold as the Bell & Howell Dial 35.

Exposure is shutter priority from the CdS ring, 1/30 to 1/250 with the aperture set for you and a pull-out button for manual and flash; focus is by zone with pictographs in the finder. The Dial 35-2 of 1968 gave it a hot shoe, a mercury-cell meter running to ASA 1000, a longer spring and a black nameplate, and a 1965 Rapid-cassette version came and went. Canon’s museum records the weights and the prices; it records no production.

Mike Eckman found the five-element lens sharp to the corners and the camera the easiest he has shot one-handed; Aly’s Vintage Camera Alley found the zone focus aggravating and the lens surprisingly good once the distance is right, and files it as a camera for the experience. Both are describing the same object.

Expand Collapse

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 Dial 35
Canon Dial 35-2: the CdS dial around the lens and the spring-motor grip below — John Nuttall from Hampshire, United Kingdom, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Canon Dial 35
Dial 35-2, 1968 — Joe Haupt from USA, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Canon Dial 35? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $50 across 34 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $35–$80). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 4 days: up 2% from $49.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$50$35–$8034
2026-09-09$50$35–$8034
2026-09-08$50$33–$7534
2026-09-06$49$25–$7038

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 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Canon Demi · Canon Demi EE17 · Ricoh Auto Half

Sources (5)

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.