LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., February 9, 2010 – The exciting TV coverage of Super Bowl XLIV seen by millions of football fans on February 7 began with images gathered in crystal HDTV clarity by lenses provided by Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging. Mobile production company NEP Broadcasting employed 38 Canon long-zoom HDTV field lenses and portable HDTV zoom lenses to provide viewers with thrilling football action captured in panoramic wide shots, dramatic close-ups, and everything in between.
“Image quality is of paramount importance when shooting an event such as the Super Bowl,” stated George Hoover, chief technology officer of NEP Broadcasting. “We’ve been using Canon HDTV lenses during this entire football season, leading right up to the Super Bowl. When the sun goes down during the game, you need good sensitivity, good light-handling capability, and low ramping so that when you’re at the end of that 100x or 86x lens’s zoom range that light level isn’t falling off. These Canon HDTV lenses provided that.”
Hoover reported that the longest reach at the game came courtesy of six Canon XJ100x9.3B
IE-D and 18 XJ86x9.3B IE-D long-zoom HDTV field lenses, all of which feature Shift-IS, Canon’s unique second-generation built-in Optical Shift Image Stabilizer Technology to ensure steady shots whatever the zoom range might be. “When you’re zoomed in really tight with the long-zoom lenses and you’re moving down the sideline in the cart, the capabilities of Canon’s Image Stabilization is of great importance,” Hoover noted.
NEP Broadcasting’s roving hand-held HDTV cameras, meanwhile, were outfitted with a combination of 16 Canon HJ21ex7.5B IRSE and HJ22ex7.6B IRSE long focal-length HDTV zoom lenses, as well as two HJ11ex4.7B IRSE wide-angle portable HDTV zoom lenses. The mobile production crew also mounted three Canon HJ40x10B IASD-V highly telephoto portable HDTV zoom lenses on robotic cameras atop goal posts for unique POV (point-of-view) shots. The deployment of this wide variety of Canon HDTV lenses on NEP Broadcasting’s HDTV cameras (nearly all of which were also used the previous Sunday on the Pro Bowl game from South Florida) provided the company with the creative flexibility it needed for the demanding requirements of providing a major broadcast network with long-focal-length, high-end broadcast video acquisition of often fast-moving Super Bowl action.
“Canon is honored to be the HDTV lens brand of choice by major production companies for Super Bowl coverage, year after year,” stated Larry Thorpe, national marketing executive of the Broadcast and Communications division of Canon U.S.A., Inc. “Canon has been at the forefront of advancing optical technology for HDTV content creation for decades. This enables Canon to provide broadcasters and other creative program producers with a wide range of highly sophisticated operational advantages in its HDTV lenses. Depending on the type and model of Canon HDTV lens, these advantages can include such features as Auto Focus, Shift-IS Optical Shift-Image Stabilizer Technology, and Canon’s exclusive Digital Servo System for microcomputer compensation of lens-focus breathing (the inadvertent alteration of field of view when operating the focus control) or Canon’s unique eDrive for precise and repeatable programming of iris, focus, and zoom settings on portable HDTV lenses.”
“The reliability of Canon HDTV lenses over time – regardless of weather and environmental conditions – is very great,” Hoover added. “When you’re shooting professional football you can be in Green Bay with snow and rain one day, and then in New Orleans with heat and humidity the next. With Canon, you know that your HDTV lenses will not only hold up today, but tomorrow as well.”
“Also, when you’re doing remote TV, it is a fact of life that a lens can get damaged,” Hoover continued. “Fortunately, we had on-site support from Canon backing us up to deal with such things. Canon went through every camera position with every camera operator so that each operator was satisfied with the functioning of their lens.”
The 38 Canon HDTV lenses NEP Broadcasting used for its coverage of Super Bowl XLIV enabled home audiences to feel like they were part of the action as never before – especially those watching at home in high-definition. “Just like with everybody else involved with the Super Bowl, we want to put on our best game,” concluded Hoover. “The image quality, performance, and reliability of our Canon lenses enable us to do that.”
About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc., is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions. Its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), a top patent holder of technology, ranked fourth overall in the U.S. in 2009†, with global revenues of US $35 billion, is listed as number four in the computer industry on Fortune Magazine's World’s Most Admired Companies 2009 list, and is on the 2009 BusinessWeek list of "100 Best Global Brands." Canon U.S.A. is committed to the highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all of the products it distributes. At Canon, we care because caring is essential to living together in harmony. Founded upon a corporate philosophy of Kyosei – "all people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future" – Canon U.S.A. supports a number of social, youth, educational and other programs, including environmental and recycling initiatives. Additional information about these programs can be found at www.usa.canon.com/kyosei. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company's RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss.
# # #
†Based on weekly patent counts issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office.
