photometric launch monitors_under the hood

[Jon]

does anyone know what sort of camera is necessary to sufficiently capture clear images at impact? anyone know what sort of camera(s) are in the skytrak, GC2 or others? frame rate? other features necessary to capture clear image at impact?

[BGCurtis2nd]

Not sure what you are looking for but here is what 22,000 FPS looks like, don't know that any one really lets anyone else know what cameras are in their setups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TA1s1oNpbk

[Dan McWhirter]

Last I looked at super cameras, the RED was about $50K...able to photograph bullets in flight with perfect stop action. Like that camera in the video above.

[Jon]

I saw on the foresight sports sight that the GC2 captures 10,000 frames per second. I wonder what the SkyTrak camera's specs are. As that would probably be a good baseline for minimum spec needed to measure ball speed, spin rate & launch angle/direction.

I also found an interesting site showcasing a wide variety of photometric cameras. From what I can see, the most important specs with these camera are resolution, color bit depth and fps. It would definitely be interesting to find out what is needed in a camera to accurately meet the requirements of a launch monitor.

http://mctcameras.com/hscameras.html

[Bubba22]

Resolution is probably the most important. Most will achieve the desired frame rates with an appropriate flash. The biggest issues will be the trigger mechanism and the ability to capture speeds ranging from a putt to a driver.

[DaveMarbury]

That's a very steep price, indeed.

[Jerome]

Sony makes a cheep ~1000 fps sensor. If I had time I would love to experiment with them. I think four with a cascading trigger would capture enough data for a golf launch monitor.