Mobile production specialists NEP Supershooters used 34 Canon HD lenses to capture the imagery from every angle for coverage of Super Bowl XLIII from Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, FL.
NEP Supershooters used the Canon HD lenses carried onboard its ND3 HD and SS24 HD mobile units for production duties on the network telecast of Super Bowl game coverage. Canon has been the exclusive provider for network TV coverage of the game for more than 15 years.
The longest reach at the game came from eight Canon DIGISUPER 100xs (XJ100x9.3B IE-D) long-zoom HD field lenses and 16 DIGISUPER 86xs (XJ86x9.3B IE-D) long-zoom HD field lenses, all of which feature Shift-IS, Canon’s built-in optical shift image stabilizer technology. NEP’s handheld cameras, meanwhile, were outfitted with eight Canon HJ22ex7.6B IRSE long focal-length portable zoom lenses, and two HJ11ex4.7B IRSE wide-angle portable lenses.
“Every Canon HD lens we select for the Super Bowl is crucial, because they all go on the air and any one of them could be on the camera that shoots the pivotal play,” said George Hoover, CTO of NEP Supershooters.
At Raymond James Stadium, NEP Supershooters counted on the Canon XJ100xs to capture many of Super Bowl XLIII’s most dramatic moments. “The 100xs is the tool that captures the emotion of the game,” Hoover said. “You’d think that those lenses would be way up in the rafters, but actually they’re down at field level clustered in the end zones. That’s what’s getting us the really close, tight HDTV shots for the look under the helmet.”
Specially modified Canon lenses also played a part in the first-down yellow line for TV viewers. SportsMEDIA Technology takes zoom and focus data from the lenses fed to the telemetry systems for the overlay, Hoover said.
