Swing cameras for small simulator space?

[dca]

I've got a small room, just 10' x 12' with obstacles overhead to boot, but miraculously I've managed to cobble together a workable set up. I can even do full swings with driver and real balls (although it is a tad dicey so I may wind up settling for foam balls and irons only).

I'm using a GC2, TGC 2019, a 7' x 4' fiberbuilt mat, and a 7.5' h x 6' w x 8" d screen courtesy of Chip at spectrum golf (thank you Chip!). This forum has been incredibly helpful, so thank you everyone!

Next up would be 1 or 2 swing cameras. I think i'd only have about 4 ft between me and a camera in either position. Is that possible or just too close? Maybe a high speed USB camera with a wide angle lens? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Also if anyone could recommend a set up for software to do automated capture/replay, that'd be amazing as well. Is this the move?:

https://golfsimulatorforum.com/forum...-awesome/page5

Thanks so much!

[enigmamatt]

A couple of thoughts:
A) Are you sure you only have 4 feet, especially on the DTL camera? Just imagining with a backswing you'd whack a wall if you truly only have 4 feet
B) What's your budget? I just upgraded to IDS3140 cameras paired with SwingCatalyst and it's amazing. I hate paying the $50/mo for SC...but man it's slick.
C) Do you have sufficient lighting for cameras? Really important as you try to get higher speed videos -- they'll often appear dark.

Here's a video of my output. I can measure to see how far the cameras are -- but I know more than 4 feet. The face on one though is pretty close.

https://youtu.be/9VKhsMzKH54

Matt

[dca]

Matt- thank you for your help - that video looks perfect!

A) Yeah you're right. Just took measurements from the walls to where i generally place the ball. Face on camera: 2.5-3ft (eek, is that too close?), down the line camera: 5.5-6ft.
B) Good question - no strict budget as I'm already pretty far down the rabbit hole. Want to strike a good balance of value for the $. Will check out IDS/SwingCatalyst, thank you!
C) The lighting in the room is just okay, especially at night, but shouldn't be too hard to add additional lighting. That's helpful to know.

Thanks!

[enigmamatt]

I think you'll be fine with the 5.5-6 ft. The 2.5-3ft tho...prob not going to work at least with the standard lens. I'm not sure how good a pic would be on a fish eye type lens.

[John6577]

A couple of thoughts:
A) Are you sure you only have 4 feet, especially on the DTL camera? Just imagining with a backswing you'd whack a wall if you truly only have 4 feet
B) What's your budget? I just upgraded to IDS3140 cameras paired with SwingCatalyst and it's amazing. I hate paying the $50/mo for SC...but man it's slick.
C) Do you have sufficient lighting for cameras? Really important as you try to get higher speed videos -- they'll often appear dark.

Here's a video of my output. I can measure to see how far the cameras are -- but I know more than 4 feet. The face on one though is pretty close.

https://youtu.be/9VKhsMzKH54

Matt

Great swing Matt! Looking around for that IDS camera you are using now. See it listed on a few websites but not much info on price. If you do not mind sharing, where did you buy your cameras and the cost?

[enigmamatt]

Great swing Matt! Looking around for that IDS camera you are using now. See it listed on a few websites but not much info on price. If you do not mind sharing, where did you buy your cameras and the cost?

Thanks! One of them I bought used on the forums here for $500 including lens, and the other one I paid full retail for through 1stvision (https://www.1stvision.com/cameras/mo.../UI-3140CP-M/C). They are the only folks in the US that I think carry this specific camera. The sensor + tripod mount from them was $760. I bought the lens from them, as well (model no is TAM-M12VM412ASIR) and paid $200, but I've since found it online for closer to $100 from a few sites...I just honestly did not know what lens to get and wanted to make sure I got something compatible.

Good luck! I spent a ton of time researching options before finally going with these. Very pleased with the output though!

[John6577]

Thanks! One of them I bought used on the forums here for $500 including lens, and the other one I paid full retail for through 1stvision (https://www.1stvision.com/cameras/mo.../UI-3140CP-M/C). They are the only folks in the US that I think carry this specific camera. The sensor + tripod mount from them was $760. I bought the lens from them, as well (model no is TAM-M12VM412ASIR) and paid $200, but I've since found it online for closer to $100 from a few sites...I just honestly did not know what lens to get and wanted to make sure I got something compatible.

Good luck! I spent a ton of time researching options before finally going with these. Very pleased with the output though!

Thanks for the info! Good stuff. Pricey but good stuff.

Any thoughts on the Swing Catalyst software? I had a lesson from Mike Granato with Athletic Golf Motion https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvt...MgI8gWlsMUmdLA
(really good instruction) last summer who used it along with the balance board and its pretty slick. Did not know if it included predetermined lines that you can add that tells you what you should be doing along with other online lessons, etc. so you are not practicing the wrong things. It's a monthly subscription and not a yearly contract, correct? Not sure I would want to pay $50 every month. Likely use it for awhile until I got things straight and then get rid of it until I needed it again.

[enigmamatt]

Swing Catalyst is pretty slick. I used Kinovea before and it was fine...but SC takes to another level in terms of ease of use. Autorecords hit, automatically marks key points in swing, easily catalogs swings, etc. I don't think it includes online lessons (I think that's if you're using it as a pro and giving lessons).

Another one to look at is Motionview software. It's not cheap, but is a 1x cost vs. ongoing and has a bit more feature / functionality than Kinovea. Honestly I had trouble getting my 3140's to work with either MV or Kinovea for some reason...though I didnt put too much effort into trying to fix.

[kirkemg]

currently using Kinovea. Agree it's fine but would like more in the "ease of use category"... For SC, can the swings/files be exported and sent to someone who doesnt have that software? What format does it do it in? Sorry for stupid question just starting to look for more than Kinovea

[FrogCarmichael]

This is a great thread for me, as I also have the same problem. Currently, my iPhone with V1 software does a fine job of DTL, being only 2.5m from me. Finding a short focal length, wide angle lens, fast frame rate camera for FO would be fantastic. I will look around on 'tinternet to see what sort of things there are. Might find some useful info. I'd need a camera for FO that does a 2m high picture at a distance of 1.3m. and 100fps!.

[Jay28]

Have a look here... plug in your distances and play around with the lens parameters you need - mainly lens focal length (shorter focal length will give wider FOV) and sensor size (I suspect at 3ft you'll need a bigger sensor than you'd normally get in standard webcams even with a very short focal length)

https://scantips.com/lights/fieldofview.html

[Jay28]

This is a great thread for me, as I also have the same problem. Currently, my iPhone with V1 software does a fine job of DTL, being only 2.5m from me. Finding a short focal length, wide angle lens, fast frame rate camera for FO would be fantastic. I will look around on 'tinternet to see what sort of things there are. Might find some useful info. I'd need a camera for FO that does a 2m high picture at a distance of 1.3m. and 100fps!.

For this, you might get away with a 2.1mm Focal length and a standard 1/3 sensor seen in the high frame rate cameras from companies like ELP.
e.g at 1.3m distance, FOV for a camera like that would be c1.9m height and c3.1m width - remember also that is from the camera to the 1.3m point you measured which I suspect is the ball... you'll be standing another 2-3ft away from the ball, meaning the FOV will be wider than that around the body)

[Homer]

I have a 2.1 mm lense on a Kayton Camera for a facing shot at about 4 feet and it captures the full swing.

[TheBigD]

For me I am using iPad/iPhone and not a full PC with good results. From what I have seen so far, only a few apps respect the wide-angle settings in the phone/ipads etc. V1Golf seems ok and MirrorVision too. Unfortunately, the Garmin App doesn't seem to do it. I am looking at adding a clip on Wide-Angle lens to my ipad/iphone to see what that does for Garmin especially. If all that fails I am going to look at https://liveviewsports.com/lvg-shop/ This is pretty cool....with the V2 version you can also add a second camera(iPhone) so you can get down the line and front on for a pretty decent price.