olympic video "slowed to 1/10,000 sec" ?

[jbeale]

I'm reading everywhere that Michael Phelps' 7th medal was decided by video played back "slowed down to 1/10,000 sec". I'm curious if anyone here knows, does that mean the video camera had a 1/10,000 shutter speed and some much slower framerate, or the camera was actually shooting 10,000 fps, or they had a slower framerate and did some interpolation for playback. Or the commentators are just saying something which is unrelated to reality?

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/be...qVTZd4?slug=ap-swm-swimming&prov=ap&type=lgns

 

[Brian Broz]

Well the phantom highspeed cameras are being used in Beijing.
Most of the newer highspeed digital cine cameras (phantom/nac/weisscam etc) shoot approx 1000FPS at "HD" resolution and much higher framerates at lower resolutions.
Here's a link to the Phantom:
http://www.visionresearch.com/index.cfm?sector=htm/files&page=Phantom_v12

 

[jbeale]

Thanks, yes the Phantom cameras are amazing. I just thought for true 10000 fps video you needed specialized lighting (brighter than would be comfortable for the spectators). But I've never used a Phantom so I don't really know.

 

[Mitch Gross]

The Phantom V12 has a rated sensitivity around 2200 ISO. Yeah, it's crazy sensitive. For live video broadcast such as this, they can get away with pumping a couple of extra stops out of it without too much noise entering the image.

Don't know if that overhead shot that was obviously from a highspeed camera was in fact the V12. I know the guy who is using it over there and he has a dozen or more Phantoms of various models working the Olympics. He probably has another fifty or so other cameras there as well, most specialty rigs. His is a very particular niche. I'll ask him about it when he gets back, but as one can imagine he's pretty busy right now.

 

[Tom Lowe]

He sounds like he's got more cameras than B&H.

 

[Dylan Reeve]

The 'photofinish' footage I've seen I think was 1/1000th of a second. There was also some other photofinish thing which has a very odd look (wrong aspect and black and white). I think both of those were in rowing (because it's one of few events where NZ has medal chances, and one race was decided by 0.01sec).

I saw some super-slowmo of pursuit cycling as well, where the light was obviously cycling (indoor, sodium lighting I guess).

I love the magically cameras they come up with at the Olympics. My wife gave me the oddest looks when I was practically shouting at the TV "wow, that's incredible, how did they get that angle!?" during some rowing (was cable camera I figured out afterward).

 

[Mitch Gross]

My favorite Olympic camera rig is one Garrett Brown (inventor of the Steadicam) came up with three or four Olympics ago. It is used for diving. The camera is mounted to a vertical track within a clear tube. When the diver jumps the camera is released and by simple Newtonian (and Galileo) gravity physics, the camera and diver fall together at exactly the same rate. Once in the water (the camera protected by the tube), a tensioned decender rig is used to slow the camera to a gentle stop, again perfectly in time with the diver. It makes for a beautiful shot, illustrates the sport extremely well and is based on an incredibly simple concept.

Garrett also came up with an underwater dolly that is used to track with the swimmers in races. The unexpected beauty in that shot is when the swimmers first jump in the water is fairly calm and they efficiently pierce the surface. The effect is that the water surface shows the swimmer's reflection above them and then swimmer & reflection merge as they come up to the surface to begin their lap. It's a poetic image that looks like something out of Leni Reifenstahl's "Olympia." Beautiful stuff.

Sports is always an area that pushes the technology in new ways. It's very competitive between broadcasters, there's lots of money involved and any new way to illustrate the events at hand are always welcome. The Olympics pushes this all the more because with so many sports presented over the course of a relatively short time, they have to come up with new ways to make each sport visually interesting and unique. There are literally thousands of cameras at work in Beijing right now, and many of them were built with these Olympics in mind.