What camera and lens were used to shoot the 2013 Oscar group portrait?

Feb 1, 2013
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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/thumbnail_570x321/2013/02/oscars_class_photo_2013_a_h.jpg

I apologize this isn't a higher rez image...but on Jimmy Kimmel, he held up a print that was maybe 50 inches wide, then the tv camera zoomed in on it. Quite high rez, sharp to the corners...and likely not a stitched panorama (I might be wrong on that, though). So I was curious if any of you might know what was used.

I tried to web search, but I'm not going to go through 20 pages of unrelated star glam minutia.

If it actually is a stitched panorama, then it matters far less to me what was used.

If it really is a one shot capture, with many of us finding difficulty achieving sharpness at the corners of very wide angle lenses...it would be interesting to know what it is. I suppose it could even be something really exotic...some $100k wide angle cine lens or something. Maybe that's even likely...they used a 4K or even an 8K (?) cinema camera, shot full motion video at that resolution, then decided of all the thousands of frames, which one was best?

Or perhaps it is a stitched panorama done simultaneously with multiple camera bodies, arrayed, then somehow tweaked in post to remove the perspective-difference anomalies? (Seems unlikely, but the mind boggles).
 
Feb 1, 2013
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Like I said, the full resolution image is pretty remarkable, very sharp...a lot sharper than any 24mm lens I've seen. You can't really tell from this low rez image. As for anyone on the sides being cropped off, it's possible this down-sized version doesn't even show the whole final image.

I guess I'll have to look elsewhere to find out what was used.
 
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Mar 25, 2011
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Feb 1, 2013
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Mt Spokane, thank you for the link and your input. I do disagree with you, though. I'm not even sure a D800 would have the resolution for the print I saw of it on Jimmy Kimmel...let alone the 14-24 Nikon lens (I know that lens is very sharp, but still). It's hard to tell, but to me it looks like the image has no barrel distortion at all...so if that was corrected, then that's even more pixels thrown out. I admit it's hard to tell about the barrel distortion or lack of it...but some kind of pano lens makes more sense to me. And especially, a larger medium format sensor makes sense too.
 
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The Linhof's are an interchangeable lens, rangefinder style, medium format film camera. You can get a variety of lenses. It is a high quality camera. But I doubt they can be used with medium format backs. (Actually, I think there are ways to hook up a medium format digital back, but you are limited to the width of a standard back, which defeats the purpose.) Another negative is that you only get 4 shots per roll with the 617.

If curious, Stuart Klipper is one of the better known users. He has some photos on hs website - http://www.stuartklipper.com.
 
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Feb 1, 2013
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Halftrack, I agree on both points. However, if it really was a single shot and not a pano...there is another type of distortion that also seems to be missing, and is even harder to correct...if it can be done at all: Rectilinear distortion (if that can be corrected, I don't know how.) To "correct" it, you could add barrel distortion, but I'm not sure that necessarily corrects rectilinear...and in any case, the picture seems to have neither type of distortion...yet it is quite a wide angle of view. So that almost rules out a single shot wide angle lens in my opinion. That leaves us with either a stitched pano...or single shot pano (which means a film camera).

I agree, there probably is a way to array perhaps 3 or 4 cameras around a point, where there would be very little overlapping distortion to correct for. And again, to take that to the extreme, it's even possible those cameras were shooting full motion video, rather than multi-shot stills. Which also means it could have been an array of 4k cinema cameras...I mean, there is a lot of star power represented in that picture...hundreds of millions, if not billions of box office dollars represented.

So could it be an array of vertically oriented (portrait mode) 1Dc's? Or even higher end cinema cameras? You would have thousands of frames from each one to select the "best" shot. I guess I could be overthinking this, and it would mean an absurd amount of man hours in post. But think about it...even if this particular picture weren't done that way...it is possible to shoot panoramic stills in that way...by arraying several cameras and shooting video with each one at anywhere from 24 to 60 fps.

It's sort of the idea of the circle of motion cameras that would freeze athletes or wildlife like sharks, and then pan around them 360 degrees. Only with a single point array of cameras, you're capturing a panoramic full motion video.

Come to think of it, that's not a bad way to shoot a movie...I just thought of a whole new movie category!! Panoramic movies...let's get to work on one now!
 
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CarlTN said:
Like I said, the full resolution image is pretty remarkable, very sharp...a lot sharper than any 24mm lens I've seen. You can't really tell from this low rez image. As for anyone on the sides being cropped off, it's possible this down-sized version doesn't even show the whole final image.

I guess I'll have to look elsewhere to find out what was used.

could have been a 24mm TSE mk II thats an extremely sharp lens
new 24-70 mkII extremely sharp

like you said its pretty hard to guage sharpness by the postage stamp sized image :p
 
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