Most of the images coming out of the 2016 Olympics in Brazil were shot with a Canon, a survey from the manufacturer shows. According to the survey conducted by the company on August 10, about 70 percent of the professional photographers at the games in Rio de Janeiro use Canon gear.
Canon has been on-site at Rio ready with gear rentals and 70 staff members (speaking 12 languages) to assist photographers at the historic sporting event, including completing repairs. Canon prepped for the games by bringing almost 1,600 loaner lenses — and that’s not including gear that photographers and news agencies bring themselves.
Canon’s on-site service loaned out nearly 500 DSLR bodies along with a number of different lenses. At the top of their loan list is the EOS 1D X Mark II, Canon’s latest flagship camera that boasts a speedy burst mode of 14-16 frames per second, with a 61-point autofocus system. As the company’s top full-frame DSLR, the camera retails for about $6,000, and Canon loaned out 362 of them at the Olympics so far.
The second DSLR on the list is the original 1D X, which doesn’t have a handful of the latest version’s more advanced features, including 4K video and the dual-pixel autofocus. The former flagship has been loaned out 123 times.
Eight lenses also make up Canon’s top-ten loans:
- EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4x (231 loans)
- EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM (211 loans)
- EF 400mm f/2.8 IS II USM (131 loans)
- EF 24-70mm f/2.8 II USM (130 loans)
- EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM (126 loans)
- EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM (105 loans)
- EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM (84 loans)
- EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM (77 loans)
Canon Professional Services, the group that handles this operation, travels to several major events throughout the year, offering repairs, loans, technical support, and maintenance. With so many professional photographers who depend on Canon equipment for their work, the service is one way the company supports them.