Team Great Britain photo...

[andyoxon]

Pretty good effort. 541 'class' photo...   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2179224/London-2012-Olympics-Giant-picture-541-Team-GB-members.html

[ed_o_brain]

Certainly put the schools photography I was doing earlier in the year into perspective!

[Wombat]

We (no doubt like most other schools) used to have a school photo done of all of us (about 650) taken with a fancy specialist panoramic camera, which gave the opportunity to appear at both ends of the photo if you were agile.  However, doing this resulted in a weeks detention...  we are talking 1960's here, so I have no idea of the technology of the camera involved.

[David Martin]

The ones beloved of school photographers are scanning slit camreas where a slit moves across the film in register with the lens. The speed of rotation is determined by the exposure needed.

[clarion]

In this case, the camera was quite normal, and the photo stitched together from loads of group shots.

[Zipperhead]

I did read that there was going to be a gigapixel image of the opening ceremony created on Saturday night and put up on the Getty Images website, but I haven't been able to find it so far.