MSC Ops Blog

Waterproof Digital Cameras With Video Modes

I recently purchased an Olympus Stylus 1030SW digital camera. This camera is a 10.1 MegaPixel digital camera that is waterproof (to 10m), shockproof (6ft drop), and crushproof (220lbs). For a swimmer it's that waterproof part that makes the camera interesting, especially when you know the camera takes video at either 640x480 or 320x240 resolution and at 15 or 30 frames per second. This makes the camera a great tool for video analysis of swimming technique.

Video of your stroke technique can be tremendously useful for improving your technique for two reasons. First, it allows swimmers to see what they are actually doing, which is often quite different from what they visualize they are doing. Second, it allows the coach and the swimmer to get a closer look than can be done in real time from the pool deck. You can load the video onto your computer and watch it in slow motion or frame by frame.

Having a camera on hand means that when a coach sees a problem in a swimmer's stroke they can quickly capture video, pull the swimmer aside, show them what they are doing, and explain the change you want them to make. You can then take another video to see if they have understood and have been able to implement the change.

People have understood that video analysis and feedback are tremendously useful tools for a long time, but the tools needed have been big and bulky and far from cheap, and not well suited to the wet and humid confines of the pool deck. What coach wants to have a swimmer dripping on their new video camera as they try to peer at the small built-in playback screen? And underwater video cameras designed for swimming have often relied on an external video system including cables and video monitors.

The Olympus Stylus brings a completely different level of convenience to video analysis and feedback. It literally fits in your pocket at approximately 9cm/3.5" wide, 6cm/2.5" tall and 2cm/0.75" thick. Being sealed it is immune to pool humidity and being waterproof it doesn't matter if the swimmer drips on it, they can handle it with wet hands and watch the video without getting out of the water. The 5.5cm by 4cm HyperCrystal LCD screen is big and bright enough to be adequate for video viewing for most purposes. Give it to a lanemate and you can capture video from the front, the side, or underneath. With a pair of fins you can taking tracking shots.

As every coach knows, it's the stuff that happens underwater that matters most in swimming technique but it can be hard to see exactly what is happening underwater from the pool deck. With an underwater video camera you can shoot underwater video from various angles and then examine them on your computer at your leisure.

The Olympus camera plugs into your computer with a USB cable and acts like a removable disk. Videos are are encoded in the AVI video format which can be opened with most video programs including Windows Media Player, Windows Movie Maker, and Quicktime Player. Quicktime Player is convenient because it allows you to step through the video frame by frame. It also has some very simple video editing capability. For a more capable video editing program Windows Movie Maker comes for free with Windows and allows you to do all the editing tasks you need for simple video analysis.

You can upload the AVI video files to youtube.com as is, or after editing. Here is a video that was shot in 640x480 at 15frames per second:

You may notice that it is a good idea to keep fingers away from the lens, and the hand strap out of the way. Youtube.com is an easy and free way to share video with members of your team. The video quality is sometimes degraded when watching online, and you can't do things like frame by frame viewing, but your teammates can download the video to their own computer using a site like keepvid.com for better quality and more control.

The Olympus Stylus product line includes the 7.1 MegaPixel 770SW model in the $200 price range, the 8 MegaPixel 850SW model in the $250 range, and the 10.1 MegaPixel 1030SW model in the $350 range.

Masters Swimming Canada intends to develop resource materials that will help coaches and swimmers make the most of new video technology to help swimmers improve their swimming technique, including guides to equipment, videography for stroke and race analysis, and software tools.

Posted at 12:36PM Sep 02, 2008 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]