ELi5 How a cameraman at a sports event able to track a fast moving ball with such a great focus on it?
In: 2760
So I’m seeing both good info in this thread as well as completely wrong info from people who have no clue what they’re talking about. Let me start by saying I am a current sports camera operator and have worked on ESPN broadcasts for many different professional sports teams. Basketball, softball,baseball, hockey, football, rugby etc.
The cameras and lenses used in these productions are very expensive, the box lenses are parfocal lens like u/drinkyourwaterbitch linked to a video explaining and they can be $200,000+ just for the lens, and professional sports games will likely have 5-10 of those cameras.
When it comes to tracking a ball for example it’s a combination of experience of the operator, watching the players movements, and listening to the director on coms. There is some pretty neat technology’s out there but on the camera operator side of things it’s a lot more basic and skill/experience based than you would expect
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