Very fluid, professional looking slow motion video isn’t hard to achieve, and if you want to produce a “sick” swimming video, it’s a must.
Gopro Hero 3 allows you to capture footage at 120 frames per second (FPS).
If you don’t have a camera with that capability, you can do it in your post production with a program called Twixtor. It’s much, much cheaper than buying a high speed video camera.
The video above is one of only a few I’ve seen using it. (I saw two or three last year using it, but they were non-swimmers.) If you’ve seen other swimming examples, please share here. Email swimswam or post in the comments.
Personal note: Swimmming videos haven’t changed much in 30 years. To be clear, the presentation of the sport of swimming, on video, hasn’t changed much. Yes, NBC gets better at Olympic coverage every 4 years, but they have mountains of money to throw at it. HOWEVER, I don’t believe their money or their creativity can match what’s out in the swimming community, globally, right now. The cost of cameras and editing software continues to drop, making the tools to achieve incredible footage easier and easier. I am 100% convinced that high school and college swimmers — who truly understand the sport — will slowly begin to produce swimming videos that blow our minds and create a sense of awe about swimmers as athletes. Moreover, I think these young swimmers, who take of the challenge, will push the bounds of what we define as “great coverage” of our sport. They’ll be the producers and directors (the media players) who keep our sport fresh.
