Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Live From Super Bowl LIX: New Canon Broadcast 122X Optical Block Expands Long-Lens Capabilities

07/02/2025

Live From Super Bowl LIX: New Canon Broadcast 122X Optical Block Expands Long-Lens Capabilities Switching out the optical block gives any UJ122x8.2 lens shallow-depth-of-field shooting By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director

Friday, February 7, 2025 - 8:00 am

Print This Story | Subscribe

Story Highlights

FOX Sports, NFL Network, and NFL Films are among the big users of Canon broadcast lenses for Super Bowl LIX, with Canon glass front and center for coverage of the game, studio shows, the Tubi Red Carpet, and more. The company is also making some news with the use of a new on-demand optical unit that gives the UJ122x8.2 lens new capabilities, extending the focus range even with a fast aperture and, more important, providing shallow depth of field at a distance requiring a BCTV telephoto field lens.

From left: Canon's Saki Fukutani, Josh Stoner, and Jamon Lomax at Super Bowl LIX, where Canon has dozens of lenses in use

It brings a nice, unique shot that folds into the show seamlessly, says Josh Stoner, senior specialist and sales engineer, Canon. The colors match the other 122X show lenses, but swapping out just the optical block offers the camera operator the ability to craft a creative look with the 122X so the shot can stand out from others.

And because the processing is done in the optical unit, the operator can simply trigger the lens to operate in standard mode or shallow-depth-of-field mode. They can operate it like a regular lens whenever they want, he points out.

FOX Sports will be using two of the lenses on the high cart position. The low camera position helps the capabilities of the optical block shine, Stoner says. This position for the new look on the 122x is ideal. You need some background elements that can contrast with the subject in the foreground. When you're shooting across the field and have the sidelines and the players on the sideline behind them, you can see the dramatic fall-off.

Adds Rich Eilers, sales director, national account, Canon USA, We've been doing a lot of testing with this system leading up to this point. We believe we have something here that can be a big benefit to our customers. The ability to have this look on-demand in a long 122X lens, which already exists on many trucks, without having to deploy additional assets allows more creativity for our clients without additional resources being spent.

A total of 16 Canon UJ122x8.2 lenses (three with the new optical block) are scattered around Caesars Superdome. In addition, three UJ111x lenses, two CJ45x lenses (one at the stadium, one for aerial coverage), and 24 ENG lenses are being deployed. Those lenses are being used for various needs, including both Skycams and almost all the Fletcher robotic positions.

Notes Stoner, We also have two 50-1000 lenses and two 17-120 lenses and four people onsite to support all the lenses.
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2025/02/07/live-from-super-bowl-lix-new-ca...
See more stories from svg

North America Stories

02/07/2026

Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE

Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...

02/07/2026

LiveMode builds agile content ingest with Cinegy

Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...

02/07/2026

Synamedia Appoints Dr Tzvi Gerstl CEO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/07/2026

Cobalt Digitals blueCORE Wins Futures Best of Show Award...

Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...

02/07/2026

Synamedia Appoints Dr Tzvi Gerstl as CEO as Company Enter...

Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...

02/07/2026

Maxon Autograph: Introduction to working with Tables

Maxon Autograph: Introduction to working with Tables Simon Ubsdell July 1, 2026 0 Comments An overview of Autograph's ridiculously powerful tables...

02/07/2026

Boston Conservatory's Soire Breaks Records to Fund Student Scholarships

Boston Conservatory's Soir e Breaks Records to Fund Student Scholarships The event achieved 127 percent of its fundraising goal in an evening celebrating ...

02/07/2026

How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Med Tech Without Missing a Beat

How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Med Tech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might thin...

02/07/2026

Joyride Through July With 12 Games Coming to GeForce NOW

Summer is heating up - and GeForce NOW is taking players along for the ride. Start the month with Monopoly: Star Wars Heroes vs. Villains, bringing a galaxy fa...

01/07/2026

Broadcast Management Group Appoints Kathy Samuels as Director of Creative Services

Broadcast Management Group (BMG) has announced the appointment of Kathy Samuels ...

01/07/2026

Shade Launches Custom Objects and Automations

Shade has announced Custom Objects and Automations, a platform expansion releasing June 29, 2026, that adds database and workflow automation capabilities direct...

01/07/2026

FOR-A America Adds Two Regional Sales Leaders

FOR-A America has announced the addition of Jaz Wray and Fernando Cruz to its U.S. sales team. Both report to Ernie Leon, Senior VP and Head of Sales and Strate...

01/07/2026

NBC Sports To Present All 15 MLB Games Nationally on July 4 Weekend Star-Spangled Sunday'

NBC Sports will air all 15 MLB games nationally on Sunday, July 5, across NBC, P...

01/07/2026

Clear-Com Upgrades Wireless Communications for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune

Clear-Com has announced a wireless communications upgrade for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, deploying FreeSpeak II and FreeSpeak Icon systems across both prod...

01/07/2026

England Deploys Sony STATSports Live GPS Tracking at FIFA World Cup 2026

England's performance team will use Sony's STATSports APEX GPS tracking system to monitor player physical data in real time during FIFA World Cup 2026 m...

01/07/2026

Adder Technology Appoints Neil Hillier as CEO

Adder Technology has announced the appointment of Neil Hillier as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Hillier succeeds Adrian Dickens, who transiti...

01/07/2026

Bitcentral Splits Into Two Companies: Bitcentral and ViewNexa

Bitcentral, Inc. has announced a strategic transaction creating two separate companies. The Production and Playout business will continue as Bitcentral, now own...

01/07/2026

DAZN48 Creator Initiative Draws Global Participation for FIFA World Cup 2026

DAZN has announced results from DAZN48, its creator initiative for the FIFA World Cup 2026. Launched in April 2026, the program received thousands of applicatio...

01/07/2026

IDEA To Induct Daktronics Sarah Rose Into Hall of Fame

Sarah Rose, VP, global services, Daktronics (NASDAQ: DAKT), will be inducted into the Information Display and Entertainment Association (IDEA) Hall of Fame at t...

01/07/2026

Gravity Media Delivers Distribution and Streaming Services for World Economic Forum in Dalian

Gravity Media and the World Economic Forum's production team provided broadc...

01/07/2026

Insight Productions Launches Insight Storm, a 53-Foot Esports Broadcast Truck

Insight Productions has announced the launch of Insight Storm, a 53-foot mobile broadcast unit built for esports production. The truck is built around a Ross Vi...

01/07/2026

ESPN Announces America 250 Content Initiatives Across Platforms

ESPN has announced several content initiatives marking America's 250th anniversary, as part of The Walt Disney Company's Disney Celebrates America pro...

01/07/2026

At Cosm, FIFA World Cup 2026 Is a Coming-of-Age Moment as Shared Reality Becomes Bucket-List Entertainment

Eleven production kits, REMI workflows, and cloud distribution bring 40 World Cu...

01/07/2026

SVG Regional Sports Production Summit Draws Industry Leaders to Denver for Deep Dive on Evolving RSN Landscape

The conference also discussed the opportunities offered an industry that is endu...

01/07/2026

Mountain West Launches MW+ Streaming Platform Powered by Kiswe

The Mountain West Conference has announced the launch of MW , a direct-to-consumer streaming platform powered by Kiswe. The platform will carry live Mountain We...

01/07/2026

FCC Plans to Auction 160 MHZ of Midband Spectrum

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

CBS Miami Launches Hope 4 Venezuela' Relief Effort

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Riedel, SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration With SimplyLive Integration

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Gray Media to Buy American Spirit Media's TV Stations

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Cascade PBS Launches App Solution Provider 'Local Public

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Manfrotto Introduces UNCOVER, the new premium camerabag collection for modern hybrid creators

Manfrotto Introduces UNCOVER, the new premium camera bag collection for modern h...

01/07/2026

Blackmagic Design Powers Houston Tamil Sangam Literacy Competition

Blackmagic Design Powers Houston Tamil Sangam Literacy Competition Brie Clayton July 1, 2026 0 Comments Volunteers use ATEM Mini Pro, Blackmagic Desig...

01/07/2026

Riedel, SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration WithSimplyLive Integration

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

PlayBox Technology Publishes State of Broadcast Infrastru...

PlayBox Technology has published State of Broadcast Infrastructure 2026, an in-depth industry research report examining the technologies, operational challenges...

01/07/2026

Jigsaw24 Appoints Alan Henry as Head of Sales for Media a...

LONDON, UK, 1 JULY Jigsaw24 has appointed Alan Henry as Head of Sales for Media and Entertainment, reinforcing its continued investment in helping broadcaster...

01/07/2026

Content Vault Partner with XMA to Distribute Universal Fi...

Content Vault, the patent-pending secure content distribution platform protecting high-value media from disclosures, theft and unauthorised access, today announ...

01/07/2026

Bitcentral Announces Strategic Evolution to Create Two F...

Bitcentral, Inc. a leading provider of enterprise software and digital media solutions for news, sports and entertainment broadcasters, as well as streaming pla...

01/07/2026

Adder Technology Names Neil Hillier as CEO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

IBCAP Opens New Anti-Piracy Lab in Denver

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

FCC Plans to Auction 160 MHZ of Mid-Band Spectrum

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

CBS Miami Launches 'Hope 4 Venezuela' Relief Effort

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Chyron Launches the All-New Chyron Academy: A Reimagined, Hands-On Learning Experience for Live Broadcast Production

Chyron Launches the All-New Chyron Academy: A Reimagined, Hands-On Learning Expe...

01/07/2026

Amplium Captures Kawasaki Brave Thunders Game with Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive

Amplium Captures Kawasaki Brave Thunders Game with Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersiv...

01/07/2026

Boris FX Optics Expands Plugin Support to Apple Photos, Capture One, and Affinity Photo

Boris FX Optics Expands Plugin Support to Apple Photos, Capture One, and Affinit...

01/07/2026

NVIDIA Unlocks AI Compute at Scale, Inviting Capital Partners to Power the AI Infrastructure Buildout

As AI moves from model development to production inference, compute demand is ac...

30/06/2026

CazTVs 12 ENG Teams Across North America Keep Brazilian Fans on Top of World Cup

As Brazil's only way for fans to see all 104 matches, YouTube channel proves the power of digital...

30/06/2026

Telemundo, Peacock See More Record Setting World Cup Audiences

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

30/06/2026

FOR-A America Adds Two Execs to U.S. Sales Team

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

30/06/2026

A3SA Disputes Weigel Assertions that NextGen TV Threatens EAS

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

30/06/2026

MainStreaming Selected by ITV to Support Delivery of ITVX...

MainStreaming, the award-winning and innovative Edge Video Delivery Network, today announced that it has been selected by ITV to support the delivery of ITVX, I...