Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonknee | Hacker News Reader

From the Wired article about the camera that is linked in the OP (which is actually quite interesting in its own right):

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/10/high-speed-camera-at-gi...

> they [FOX] also plan to roll out another Vision Research camera for the World Series that shoots up to 20,000 frames per second with a 500 mm lens.

> At that speed Davies says viewers should be able to clearly see things like the bending of a bat when it hits the ball or the impression the bat leaves on the ball when it first makes contact.

The most impressive part of this to me is that they are able to do these high fps shots without good lighting. Normally you want some really high powered strobes to help out. But they're doing this in either daylight or even more impressively just with the game lights. Must be some really awesome ISO performance.

View on HN

One of the coolest things for me about games that span the day/night barrier is watching more and more cameras activate the automatic flash. I wonder if all those camera flashes are bright enough to have an effect on these shots.

You mean cameras from the crowd? They have no effect other than to look cool (opening ceremonies at the Olympics come to mind). It's mostly people not knowing how to operate their camera or a general lack of photography knowledge.

Here's an idea: An app that links all the wireless phone/cameras in an arena and syncs the flashes. Phone buzzes, you hold it up (with everyone else), they all flash. You could even spell out words or do the wave. Or play Conway's Life.

Unless it's already patented.

Coldplay uses something similar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_...

Not phone based though, which is a good thing if my experience in using phones in high capacity crowds is typical.

This is neat, thanks. They're called Xylobands, flash in sync with the music and are radio controlled via a transmitter and laptop that the company rents you for your event. http://xylobands.com/glowbands-product_info.php

That would be cool! (although probably banned from games if it got too popular...) Or you could synchronize loads of phones so they take photos at the same time and reconstruct a Matrix style 360 photo-model of a point in the game :oP

In most arenas, professional photographers have access to the built in strobe lights. You can notice (if you pay attention) to the flashing of the lights when professional is snapping pictures. They typically have little antennas on the top of the camera, so the flash is automated with the shutter. This is most noticeable at hockey or basketball games, where the arena is much smaller and the lights are closer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com