Low-tech high-dive

August 14, 2008 2:52 AM

At the Beijing Olympics this summer there is a camera that follows divers through the air until they hit the water's surface in glorious high-definition. The DiveCam was originally invented by Garrett Brown, the inventor of the Steadicam, and was first used in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. What new technology made this innovation possible? The power of gravity and pulleys.
posted by HaloMan (21 comments total)

I am also quite partial to the crazy 50's stylings of MobyCam, that tracks the swimmers.
posted by roofus at 3:56 AM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

That Garret Brown. Hoo boy. Dude can't stay away from physics and cameras. Thank you, Doc Brown!
posted by cavalier at 4:03 AM on August 14, 2008

A lot of things at this Beijing Olympics, it seems, are being done with gravity and pulleys.
posted by three blind mice at 4:05 AM on August 14, 2008

In case it wasn't readily clear, the Steadicam is essentially a mechanism for steadying a camera by putting the operator in a harness and using a set of counterweights to balance any jarring movement from reaching the camera -- see Steadicam FAQ here, how you can build a cheap Steadicam here, or hell some Garrett Brown MSM links here. Any time you've seen a movie in the past 25 years that involved a dolly-esque movement (camera moves side to side or front to back -- itself, you see, without turning), without the dolly track, that's a Steadicam.
posted by cavalier at 4:08 AM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

A lot of things at this Beijing Olympics
i've noticed this meme on reddit too. i don't dispute the facts, but i started to wonder at its popularity. much as the europeans make snide comments about the americans, are the americans starting to do the same with the chinese? at the first olympics where they're no longer number 1?
posted by not sure this is a good idea at 4:43 AM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

Having the tube the camera shoots through tinted above water and clear below to keep the same exposure setting is another little bit of simple genius.
posted by Brockles at 4:59 AM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

What I've noticed is that the Chinese were perfectly upfront about the this. Granted, they didn't advertise it, but neither was it dug up by some intrepid journalist either. The "augmented fireworks" were obviously gonna be noticed when on-site journalists saw the footage and the "singing girl swap"came out in a Chinese newspaper during an interview with one of the producers. And yet this stagecraft is being bruited as an underhanded scandal.
posted by RavinDave at 5:06 AM on August 14, 2008

are the americans starting to do the same with the chinese?

If there was an Olympics for the Internet, exposing fakery and mocking it endlessly would be one of the major medal events.

This mockery has nothing to do with the Chinese, except that it seems the Chinese judges are giving undeservedly low scores in this event to foreigners.
posted by three blind mice at 5:15 AM on August 14, 2008

Bringing up those two minor things in a thread with barely any connection is very axe-grindy.
posted by smackfu at 5:33 AM on August 14, 2008 [4 favorites]

Yeah....this is not a generic thread about the Olympics. We're talking about a specific camera here. Which is fucking cool.
posted by spicynuts at 6:12 AM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

The really hard one is the vault cam in gymnastics. No gravity to help you there. The quality's also not nearly as good.
posted by smackfu at 6:22 AM on August 14, 2008

That was very interesting, and very entertainingly written, thanks HaloMan.
posted by amyms at 6:30 AM on August 14, 2008

Wow, too cool. Blew my mind. Wow.
posted by Bovine Love at 7:00 AM on August 14, 2008

I want a JavelinCam. And by that I mean a camera embedded in the tip of the javelin. Or how about a ChestCam that runners could embed in their running suits that would show the runner's POV as they run around the track?
posted by Pastabagel at 7:13 AM on August 14, 2008

Do runners see through their nipples, then?
posted by Brockles at 7:18 AM on August 14, 2008

are the americans starting to do the same with the chinese? at the first olympics where they're no longer number 1?

Huh? Back in the day, the US was an eternal second banana to the USSR in olympic medals. And there's also, you know, every winter olympics ever.

Also, the divecam is faked. There's really a gang of enslaved Keeblers in there running the camera up and down. They keep it secret because if it got out, everyone would want a gang of enslaved Keeblers for sexual self-gratification.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:35 AM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

The whole gizmo is based on the brilliant insight that objects fall at the same rate regardless of mass.

Thanks Galileo! I never doubted that someday that experiment would pay off. Chalk one up for Pure Science.
posted by rusty at 7:45 AM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

My favorite part of the article is that they spend all this time on "just use gravity" and "basic insight" and then at the end they mention that it doesn't work perfectly so it needs a fully controlled camera inside that has a human operator to make sure it is centered on the diver.
posted by smackfu at 8:29 AM on August 14, 2008

The camera works perfectly. It's the diver doing a jackknife who doesn't obey the law of gravity. Great post, HaloMan.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:06 AM on August 14, 2008

Very cool stuff. I wish it had a simple diagram or movie instead of overemphasizing the history of the discovery of gravity to explain what it means to -DROP- something. Sheesh!
posted by hellslinger at 10:19 AM on August 14, 2008

The camera they use in the Winter Olympics for luge and bobsled is also really cool. I seem to remember it being first used in Albertville (or maybe Nagano, but I'm pretty certain it was 92). It's on some sort of swivel mount that lets it get the oncoming shot, then snap around to get the back shot.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:50 PM on August 14, 2008