Setting up the camera correctly is very important to get the most from your online lesson.
Recommended Camera Setup:
- Set the video camera to the highest shutter speed available on the camera that works for the light conditions. This will make it easier to see the position of the club throughout the swing. Do NOT use auto shutter.
- The camera viewfinder must have an unobstructed view of the club head throughout the swing.
- Place the video camera on a tripod. Video taken from a moving camera does not work well for online lessons.
- Make sure that the camera is properly positioned:
Camera height –
Set up your camera about about belt line high.
Approximately the height of your hands when the shaft is parallel to the ground during your back-swing.
Make sure the camera is level both horizontally and vertically.
Down the line view –
Place the tripod so that the camera is directly behind your hands and aligned parallel to the target line. Lay a stick, shaft or golf club on the ground in front of your toes to aid in aligning the camera. The stick on the ground must appear as a straight line in the camera viewfinder and your hands must be directly above the stick on the ground.
Front view –
Set up the camera perpendicular to the target line aligned to be looking at the midpoint of your stance. Use two sticks, shafts, or golf clubs placed on the ground in the shape of a “T” to aid in aligning yourself and the camera.
Video explaining camera set up:
Use the diagram above for camera height, the camera height in the video below is obsolete. Other information in the video is helpful though.
Tiger Woods and the Importance of Camera Angles:
This video is not so much about Tiger’s swing (although it is still awesome) as it is about the difference camera positioning makes when viewing the same swing from different angles and comparing swings side by side as though they are the same when actually the camera angles are different.
Here we Tiger hit the same tee shot from different angles. One is the regular camera that the TV crew uses when filming the action, and the other is from the High Speed camera that the network uses to allow the commentators to do a better job on their swing analysis. The full speed swing was filmed live, and I am playing it back here off the DVR. The slow motion swing was filmed at the same time but from a different angle, and the network played it back after the original shot was done with. The comment is made about the slow motion swing, and when I focused in on the stark differences in the two swings it highlighted what I have been saying on the website all along, that filming with a consistent (and stable) camera angle is imperative when comparing two swings, and that the effort to make an analysis that is comparable to other swings they have to be taken from the same angle, both horizontally and vertically. In the background we can see that it’s the same landscape, but it looks remarkably different when viewed from higher up, further away, and more to the right (more on or past the ball-target line and less on the hand line). At the same time, Tiger’s swing looks more inward and across the line from this angle, while appearing more in front of him and laid off from the hand line. My opinion has always been that when working on the pivot and watching how the club relates to the body and how the club planes to the ball that the camera should be on the plane of the original shaft angle at address, and that if the camera is about waist high or just below (the approximate height of the hands at address you can assess these things accurately.
