Admiring those Net Threads

I still marvel at how people manage to film sporting events. I guess all I’ve got is an ordinary DSLR, which isn’t really made for filming much of anything. As much as camcorders are the video apparatus of the masses, I do appreciate the auto-focus. Nothing worse than getting a load of footage, then suddenly realising that the settings were wrong and only the backgrounds of the shots are actually in focus. It HAS happened to me. Devastating.

I still remember when they revealed the ultra-slow-motion cameras for the Australian Open a while back. They were action shots, but you could still look at the tennis nets and count the individual threads in the footage. I like to think the the people who make tennis netting must’ve been pretty happy that their work was finally on show, in HD, for the first time ever. Many orders for tennis nets were made that day. Also, tennis balls. Basically all kinds of sports equipment becomes super popular when there is a grand slam event in town.

Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be getting my hands on technology like that any time soon. I never really wanted to get into sports broadcasting anyway, but it was interesting to see what people can do with the technology. If you can film a bit of netting, in an action shot no less, and make it look like you can reach into the screen and brush your hand along the threads…then what else? People have done all sorts of things. One video I saw showed a fly beating its wings at normal bird speed, which was oddly satisfying. At one point during my project, I’d like to see if I can rent something that powerful. For now, it’s just me and my DSLR…for filming static sports netting at best. Lest a ball slam into it at high speed and make it all blurry. No auto-focus is a killer.