Last week, Bill, our resident Canon guy, mentioned that Tim Burton was working on a new stop-motion animated movie called Corpse Bride using Canon digital still cameras. The attention to detail and imagination in motion animation never ceases to amaze us.

Mark Jen sent me this article confirming the use of Canon digital still cameras and Nikon lenses.

Animator Peter Dodd sets up a shot with the Corpse Bride puppets, by Warner Bros. Pictures.

I’d say it breaks my heart that they used Canon, but it really makes a lot of sense. At the time of the shooting, the D1 was too old and the D2H sensor lacked the resolution than the Canon EOS-1D Mk II has. It’s only advantage for stop motion animation would have been the wireless direct to disk, but at the compromise of quality.

If filmed now, they would probably use a Nikon D2X. And if they did, would everything be framed differently with an APS-C sensor? Kind of makes you wonder.

In any case, it is pretty cool that you can use Nikkon glass on Canon bodies and it saved Burton $90k in lens purchases. (It also sparked lively discussion of Flickr’s Technique board.)

Caitlin will be happy not note that Corpse Bride is another case of an editor switching from Avid to her beloved Final Cut Pro. She called it years ago.