Shooting Golf swing/Ball
 

I am producing a golf instructional video. I have already experimented with fast shutter speeds to ensure the swing is smooth for making it slo-mo. But I need advice on shooting the ball flight. I read for the PGA they reverse the contrast in the viewfinder to follow the ball path. But I'm not sure how to achieve this.

Anyone have experience with a good way to do this?

Thank you!

Re: Shooting Golf swing/Ball
 

Of course the Golf Channel mostly uses 6 or more cameras, 1 or 2 on the tee, then they cross fade 2 during the ball flight then another 2 or more on the green where the ball lands. And that's just for a par 3.

IMO with one camera, you'd have to get creative with long ball flights and maybe just cover it with suitable narration. Where it lands is the thing and don't I know it :) Got any good tips?

Cheers.

Re: Shooting Golf swing/Ball
 

I can follow a car at 200mph but I can't follow a golf ball to save my life. The camera ops that cover golf are some of the best out there. It's a real art to follow a golf ball in flight, hell, sometimes I can't do even after I hit the ball. This is an art that requires practive, lots of practice. For an instructional you might consider using one camera behind the player to at least get some kind of shot of the ball in flight and then fake the rest in. Remember at typical amature golf swing is somewhere in the range of 80 to 100 mph and the ball travels off the face at more than that. A pros swing can be up to 135mph.
So lots of practice and some creative editng are in order.

Re: Shooting Golf swing/Ball
 

Those flying ball shots you saw were usually shot with studio lenses. Those cameras had studio monitors mounted on them, and you could turn on or off each RGB channel selectively. So if you turned off the blue channel, the sky would appear black, making seeing the white ball against blue sky much easier. Likewise you could turn off the green channel and see the white ball in the grass very easily. The camera was usually placed in line with the golfer and the hole, which meant that the ball would appear to travel up and down, but not so much left and right from the camera's point of view. That made tracking the ball much easier. If you tried to track the ball left to right from the middle of the fairway, that's virtually impossible.