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

Canon L1, L2 and L3

Canon · LTM mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film · 1957

Also known as: Canon L1 · Canon L-1 · Canon L2 · Canon L-2 · Canon L3 · Canon L-3 · Canon L 1 · Canon L 2 · Canon L 3

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
L2 LTM 1957–1958 — No figure published
L1 LTM 1957–1958 — About 8,200 — 8,000 chrome and 200 black (camera-wiki)
L3 LTM 1957–1958 — No figure published
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Lever on top, no trigger underneath, no self-timer lever on the front: that is an L
  • L1: crank rewind and 1/1000; L2 and L3: pop-up knob and 1/500; L3: a covered sync socket

L2:

  • Marketed March 1957, 67,000 yen (w/50mm f/1.8) 56,000 yen (w/50mm f/2.8) · 530 g · 143 × 76 × 34 mm
  • Lever wind on top; 1/500; no self-timer; FP-sync only; pop-up rewind knob; 530 g body

L1:

  • Marketed May 1957, 87,000 yen (w/50mm f/1.2), 48,000 yen (body) · 915 g · 145 × 76 × 34 mm
  • Lever wind; 1/1000; FP, M-F and X; rewind crank; parallax pin; no self-timer; cloth curtains early, stainless later
  • Japan's first Good Design Award, with the Canon 8T cine camera (museum)

L3:

  • Marketed November 1957, 48,000 yen (w/50mm f/2.8), 32,000 yen (body)
  • L2 with no flash sync at all — the terminal hole covered; ¥32,000 body

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film
Finder
Combined coincidence rangefinder and reversed-Galilean viewfinder with a rotating three-position magnifier — with the shoe's parallax pin
Shutter
Horizontal cloth focal-plane, two dials · T, 1–1/30 and X, B, 1/60–1/1000 (L1); 1–1/15 and B, 1/30–1/500 (L2, L3) · flash sync FP, M-F and X (L1); FP only (L2); none (L3) · no self-timer
Film advance
Single-stroke lever on top
Back
Hinged, swings open
Meter
None
Weight
915 g
Dimensions
145 × 76 × 34 mm
Country
Japan
Original price
67,000 yen (w/50mm f/1.8) 56,000 yen (w/50mm f/2.8) (March 1957, Canon Camera Museum) (today ¥419,000)

What reviewers say

No reviews aggregated yet — this family is still in the research queue. Written one? We'd love to index it.

History

The L is the VT with a film-advance lever on the top plate — L for lever — and no self-timer, which left the body clean enough to win the first Good Design Award the Ministry of International Trade and Industry ever gave a camera. The L2 came first, in March 1957, with a 1/500 shutter and bulb sync only; the L1 in May at ¥48,000 body, with 1/1000, full sync, a rewind crank and the parallax pin; the L3 in November as an L2 with no flash at all, at ¥32,000. camera-wiki counts about 8,200 L1s, two hundred of them black.

Early L1s have cloth curtains; later ones the thin stainless-steel curtains the museum says were introduced against pinholes burned by the sun — the metal shutter the VL, VI, P and 7 all carry.

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.

Photographs

Canon L1, L2 and L3
A 1958 Sears advertisement listing the Canon L-1 beside the VT De Luxe — Nesster, via Openverse (flickr) (BY 2.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $200 across 17 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $170–$250). Tracked since 2026-09-09, 2 days: up 4% from $190.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$200$170–$25017
2026-09-09$190$150–$24019

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

Show 13 more listings

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

Related: Canon VL and VL2 · Canon VT and VT de luxe

Lenses for this body: Canon 19mm f/3.5 · Canon 25mm f/3.5 · Canon 28mm f/2.8 · Canon 28mm f/3.5 · Canon 35mm f/1.5 · Canon 35mm f/1.8 · Canon 35mm f/2 · Canon 35mm f/2.8 · Serenar 35mm f/3.2 · Serenar 35mm f/3.5 · Canon 50mm f/1.2 · Canon 50mm f/1.4 · Canon 50mm f/1.5 · Canon 50mm f/1.8 · Serenar 50mm f/1.9 · Serenar 50mm f/2 · Canon 50mm f/2.2 · Canon 50mm f/2.8 · Serenar 50mm f/3.5 · Canon 85mm f/1.5 · Canon 85mm f/1.8 · Canon 85mm f/1.9 · Serenar 85mm f/2 · Canon 100mm f/2 · Canon 100mm f/3.5 · Serenar 100mm f/4 · Canon 135mm f/3.5 · Serenar 135mm f/4 · Canon 200mm f/3.5 · Canon 300mm f/4 · Canon 400mm f/4.5 · Canon 600mm f/5.6 · Canon 800mm f/8 · Canon 1000mm f/11

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.