In the past, I've seen underwater cameras, the kind that coaches often use, or that would be handy for a coach.
For the life of me, I must not be doing my 'googling' right, I'm coming up empty handed.
Hints anyone?
Links? Camera/housing names? Other keyword hints?
Any specific recommendations, something you tried and like?
Thank You :)
Former Member
went to yahoo and typed in : underwater swim camera . it came back with a bunch of hits.
this was the first one -
swimcoaching.com/AquaCam overview.htm
Try www.zoomers.net/snooper.htm
I've had a snooper for a lot of years, it's durable and works great.
The Zoomers website is an interesting trip also, take the tour.
Check out the ASCA (www.swimmingcoach.org)website also, in the online catalog section they have another underwater cam, similar in design to the Snooper.
See Ya
Brian
If you are interested in renting an underwater camera, you might want the check out the USMS Snooper Video Camera Loan Program. Details can be found in the coaching section of the USMS web site at www.usms.org/coach/snooper.shtml
What about inexpensive digicams for stroke analysis ? See post under
Swim video tools
Only using this now for peer analysis with an 8yr old who is just beginning to take swimming seriously. After some experience will move to the more demanding local Masters team so looking to hear of gotchas in presenting this type of tool.
Masters team coach is interested, but not sure of value of such inexpensive and relatively low resolution video tools.
I did a bit of research in this area and came up with a solution that I find works well.
First, I tried getting an underwater housing for my video camera. The housing was remarkably expensive considering that it is a glorified bag in which you place your expensive camera. The housing that I purchased was Ewa Marine. A quick search for those will show you that I must have had more money than brains at the time: ewa marine sony video camera
Aside from the price, I didn't like this solution because it requires that you enter the water and hold the camera steady. The air in the housing makes it difficult to keep the camera steady and submerged, so you may also need weights for the bad. Um, yes, I bought those, too. Also, it is difficult to film yourself when you are swimming alone at your local YMCA with this solution (perhaps this is not a concern for most).
Fast forward a couple of years and I found myself with less money than brains. I looked at several products that were mentioned above and luckily found this page on usaswimming.org.
From that I found the Lorex 6991.
By adding a pole (broom handle) and plugging this into a video recording device on deck (vcr, camcorder, pvr), you avoid getting your expensive video camera close to the water, keep yourself dry and avoid the bouyancy problems that I mentioned with the underwater housing. Most important for me, I could set this up and swim without an underwater videographer.
The video is color and has a wider angle of view than my submerged video camera and it works out to be much cheaper than any of the other solutions.
I should have mentioned that in my tests, I found that the limiting factor on the underwater video quality was usually the clarity of the water. So for those of you that are thinking you need to buy an expensive recording device that has a high resolution, I say save your money. Get an old video camera or vcr that you probably already own and a Lorex and you have a great solution for under $150.
Video Camera Loan Program. Details can be found in the coaching section of the USMS web site at www.usms.org/coach/snooper.shtml
