High Speed Video Analysis Camera
Product Reviews — By thevideoanalyst on July 26, 2010 10:48 amHigh Speed Video Analysis Camera
Obviously to conduct good video analysis you need good footage. While videoing team sport events is a fairly straight forward affair; Get plenty of height to video from, a standard video camera and maybe a wide angle lens are all you really need, videoing technique can be very different.
Once you go to analyse technique, in any sport, the need to know greater detail increases significantly. For example, take a golf swing, it is no use knowing the general shape of a golf swing. You need to know how the hands move, the angle of the club head and other hard to see subtleties. The problem with standard video camera is that they will only record 25 frames per second (or 30 fps in most North American cameras).
As you can see in this example the club head is hardly visible let alone being able to make out where it is facing. 
For along time any camera that allowed you increase the frames per second would have set you back a small fortune. But as with most pieces of technology the prices are decreasing significantly. The Casio E series offers an affordable solution to this problem.
The camera looks like a semi-pro still camera – and indeed it does all you would expect from a 6 mega-pixel still camera, but I’m going to discuss the camera’s merits as a video camera. Gizmodo, the technology review site, referred to this as the most underrated gadget to hit the market in at least a year.
So what can it do? Well ultimately it can shoot 300, 600 or 1200 fps. This means you can get detail you just would never be able to see with other cameras. Take a look at the video below to see the type of detail you can get – this is at 1200 fps.
Well worth considering this type of camera if you need quite a lot of detail in your analysis. It is only a matter of time (I’m sure it has already happened) that the other major manufacturers will follow suit.
Rob Carroll. Founder of The Video Analyst.com Performance Analyst. Always learning.
Tags: camera, high speed cameras, Performance Analysis, sport, Video Analysis
3 Comments
Hi Robert,
Keen to hear what Casio users have to say. Those Casio cameras have some other great functionality such as the ability to cache video allowing you to start recording after the action starts and also some on board trimming tools so your video is ready to use once copied to a computer. However my observation is that the auto focus has the responsiveness of a still camera, it is slow and jumpy and for many sports application that is a serious downside. I don’t have one yet and was simply trying it out on a day with clients. Is it as bad as it seems?
Also your golf swing is a slightly skewed example because the issue there is not so much the frame rate but the exposure/shutter speed. On cheap camcorders you tend to only have an auto exposure setting (e.g. Sport AE) but moving up the price list you get camcorders where you can set the ‘shutter speed’. My camcorder has a 1/2000th sec exposure at 25fps which would be enough to freeze that golfer without blurring – the bigger issue is that his club is moving so quickly that trying to get a frame showing the exact moments of interest becomes impossible. That is where the higher frame rates of the Casio become useful.
Hey Neil,
I know this is the camera that the Sports Institute of Northern Ireland use and their analyst highly recommends it. They use it quite a bit with archery and get some great shots. One of the bigger issues with getting such a high fps is the amount of light you need. I know in a lot of cases if filming in doors the footage is best shot in black and white.
I take your point on the golf swing. Probably should have used two frames side by side to show how much the club moves in a single frame of video.
Cheers,
I recently purchased a casio high speed camera, i went for an even more affordable option, its a compact digital camera with the high speed functionality.
http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?client=safari&q=casio+high+speed+camera&oe=UTF-8&cid=18277145842385214857&ei=K51OTMCtIY_8wAXo0d3eDA&sa=title&ved=0CDUQ8wIwCDgA#p
Image quality is ok considering the price (similar to that of an average digital camera) and image quality is much better in good light. resolution is small as you would imagine on high speed shots but excellent for the price.
Its small and slim and fits neatly in a pocket which makes using it in coaching sessions even easier.
Its also a pretty good still camera which can record hd video too.
Hope this helps those looking for the ultra affordable option.
rich