"Framing" The Situation …

Two weekends ago one of those great “Murphy’s Law” events happened that can be frustrating but hopefully useful.

I had a driver/fairway wood fitting session with a client and could not get my video camera to work. I had been using an old Sony video camera to record swing sequences so that I can measure club release point – where a player breaks his wrist cock – and overall swing tempo. These are important to know to get the right “flex profile” for a driver or fairway wood shaft. I use software called V1 Home to step through video frames to collect this data.

It turned out that the firewire cable taking video from my Sony camera to my computer was broken – not sure how but it was. I ordered another cable but….

In the process of not knowing if the camera did not work or if the cable was broken, I asked my AGCP fitting friends about what cameras they are presently using, and a lot of them said I should look at the Casio EX-FM 25 camera. This camera takes still shots, but also takes video and can get to frame rates easily of 240 frames/second – about 4 times the resolution of my present Sony camera. And with good lighting I might even be able to get to higher frame rates with it. As you can guess then, I bought it and it is a terrific camera.

Two things about it should help improve my fittings. First, the greater frame rates will allow me to get more precise info. on club release point. Second, I am looking forward to setting the camera up and taking some high frame rate video of player putting strokes. I suspect that this putting data can help identify ways for players to improve their putting.

Tony