BELL & HOWELL/CANON HALF FRAME CAMERAS
Canon made agreements with BELL & HOWELL to sell several of their cameras. Some were sold as "Bell & Howell" while othered were badged as "Bell & Howell / Canon".
Canon made agreements with Bell & Howell to sell several of their cameras. The Dial 35 was just one. All the features were the same except that the front name-plate said "BELL & HOWELL/CANON DIAL 35". This is NOT the same camera as the "BELL & HOWELL DIAL 35" -- see below. The Dial cameras were a unique approach at the time. The cameras were small, thanks to the half-frame format, but offered exceptional features. This model had a manually focusing, 28mm (f2.8 - 22.0) (5 elements in 3 groups) lens. The lens could be focused with a distance scale on the lens or distance symbols in the viewfinder. Close-focusing to 0.8 meters. Shutter speeds were set manually from 1/30 - 1/250. Then the correct aperture could be set manually or automatically with the built-in CDS meter. For manual exposure, the button under the viewfinder was pulled out and rotated. The viewfinder had an f-stop readout for metered-manual use. For automatic exposure, the button was pushed in. After the shutter speed is manually selected, the meter displayed the set f-stop in the viewfinder. Either way, you never had to take your eye away from the viewfinder to set the exposure or the focusing -- very nice!!! Over and under (use flash) exposure symbols in the viewfinder. But that's not all!!! The camera also had a spring-wound film drive. While not as speedy as the electronic drives of today, this unit was built into a small "handle" on the bottom of the camera. Rapid shooting was possible if you had a quick finger -- about 20 shots could be taken with each winding of the spring. To rewind the film, just press the rewind button -- no cranking was needed. Film speed range of ISO 8 - 500. 48mm filter thread. Cable release socket in shutter release button, and tripod socket in spring drive. ISO/DIN converter on the back. An amazing camera for the time, it sold on the street for under $40. PC contact and cold shoe. Soft leather case. It's a good thing that it's a half-frame (with up to 72 exposures per roll), because you can burn through film pretty easily with this guy!
Canon made agreements with BELL & HOWELL to sell several of their cameras. The Canon Dial 35-2 was just one. All the features were the same as the Dial 35-2 except that the front name-plate said "BELL & HOWELL DIAL 35". The "CANON" part was dropped and it did not say "DIAL 35-2", but just "DIAL 35". An updated version of the original. The differences were nice, but not enormous. This version used the smaller PX625 battery. The readout in the viewfinder was similar but showed all of the f-stops and a blue scale where everything would be in focus (if the distance on the lens was set to the hyperfocal distance). In addition the ISO was changed to 10 to 1000. Also, a hot shoe was added, and a wrist strap (very convenient) added to the spring-motor drive. Same 48mm filter thread. Same cable release socket in shutter release and tripod socket in spring drive. The nice soft leather case was changed to a hard leather(?) case. The ASA/DIN converter on the back was changed to a "Check List for easy picture taking". You can tell a BELL & HOWELL Dial 35 from a BELL & HOWELL/Canon Dial 35, not only because it does not say Canon on the front plate, but the front plate (under the focusing scale) is black on the BELL & HOWELL Dial 35. Overall, these nice improvements make it the shooters' choice. Takes one 625 battery.
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