18 replies to this topic

[AutoGrafica]

Is it just me or are the camera angles on more than a few corners less than exciting? It seems, and it may be only my opinion, that the viewpoints used back in the 1980's were far more exciting. Maybe they were lower and more personable, so to speak. Sure it may depend on the director at each race, and the new rotating movable camera's on the corners of a few tracks are a blast to watch, and the onboard front and back view cameras are nice... but how about onboard sideview camera's? How about movable (same size as the onboard) cameras that travel at the same speed down a long high speed straight? (kinda like how dogs chase a rabbit at the track). It just seems to me some cameras are very far away and may make the experience a little less interesting. Cosa pensate?

[Globber2000]

I'd like to see angles that show off some of the terrain and elevation of a racetrack. When zoomed in so far, it is very hard to tell one part of a track from another, and even tracks from each other. My favorite angle is the steep downhill before the first harbor chicane in Monaco, as it really shows all the danger and closeness of Monte Carle

[rookie]

I wish they had the in-helmet cameras they had in champ cars in 03/04...

they are awesome, about as close to the actual drivers perspective as you can get...

if you havent seen them, it is a camera in the helmet behind the visor, i.e in line with drivers eye sight.

the vision moves up and down a fair bit, but its amazing, you see when the driver looks down to change dials etc... you feel braking as the shot jolts forward.....everything.

[hodgsonc]

One thing that bugs me about the cameras these days is the amazing zoom they have, they tend to follow the car while reducing the zoom and you don't get a good representation of the speed of the cars.

[CARVER]

Originally posted by AutoGrafica
... but how about onboard sideview camera's?

I believe they do have that, but the only footage of it that I can remember was Spa 2004 onboard with JPM while going side by side with Massa towards Eau Rouge (and they played 'chicken'), the footage from that angle looked really cool when Montoya decided to back off.

[giddyup409]

Originally posted by hodgsonc
One thing that bugs me about the cameras these days is the amazing zoom they have, they tend to follow the car while reducing the zoom and you don't get a good representation of the speed of the cars.

yup, compare todays camera with the camera from 1976 in claude lelouch "c'etait un rendezvous"

you get the picture

[marcus123]

How would you read the sponsors without the closeup zooms?

[Gemini]

You have absolutely no sense of speed watchi F1 live these days. All beacuse of number of advartising on cars and most importantly on tracks. By definiton any camera angle that would present dymamism of racecar would be bad for on-track advertising in this amount...

Remember it's on-track ads that pay Bernie big bucks... the cars are only an unfortunate, noisy addition to get us glued to TV screens

[skinnylizard]

i think the camera angles work fine. the coverage at Bahrain wasnt too bad either. i like the camera angle where they show the drivers face through the steering. sometimes u can get a look at their eyes.
the helmet cam sounds pretty interesting.

[Hellenic tifosi]

One other bad example is the way they deal with big straights.

For example, in China the cars are shown head on and we don't experience the shocking accelaration and speed throughout this 1,2km straight.

[howardt]

A couple of years ago when Bernie was launching the digital Bernie vision, the in-car shots were severely restricted (that is, non-existant), and coverage generally was the wrong side of utter ****.

The failure of the digital channel is best for F1, as we do now get to see some in-car footage (although nowhere near enough), and even - lord be praised - a picture in picture for pitstops, so we don't miss some crucial bit of action while we watch Johnny Backmarker rumbling down the pitlane coming into/out of his stop.

It's getting better, but painfully slowly. There is a moving cam - it follows cars out of the hairpin at the new hockenheimring. It can only follow them so far, though, as F1 cars go fast. I think that's why we don't see more. The only way to get a camera to match the acceleration/deceleration of an F1 car would be to mount it on an F1 car.

I like the sound of the helmet cams. Sadly I don't think they will offer enough advertising logo opportunities to make it into F1, but we can dream.

[djned]

Originally posted by howardt
I like the sound of the helmet cams. Sadly I don't think they will offer enough advertising logo opportunities to make it into F1, but we can dream.

for a series where everything is sponsored such as CART to adopt it then there must be a way. ffs, i watched a nascar race where they had a camera watching the rear suspension - of course there were sponsor decals in shot as well.

i note that one tactic they use in CART to get sponsor's money is by branding the camera angles, or the scorecard, or whatever - which is not in the style of F1.

[mini696]

I agree with the guys saying the speed of the cars isnt shown anymore.

I also wish there was some more still cameras to show the attitude of the car when they change directions.

[V10 Fireworks]

Originally posted by djned


for a series where everything is sponsored such as CART to adopt it then there must be a way. ffs, i watched a nascar race where they had a camera watching the rear suspension - of course there were sponsor decals in shot as well.

i note that one tactic they use in CART to get sponsor's money is by branding the camera angles, or the scorecard, or whatever - which is not in the style of F1.

But the timing screen was always branded...

Hehe, rear suspension or by the exhaust etc. I guess F1 teams are relutanct to take on camera angles that they don't have (and FOM are stingy with proving resources they don't have too) to as a 0.01% disadvantage due to the camera is a big thing in F1, (and all the other cars need to have ballast in the same spot or something? only some cars run the nose or the old-style over the shoulder mounted camera though I dunno) where in NASCAR they are more open to the advantages. Ch 10 had some perhaps overly-technical camera angles with one on the suspension in the wheel arch of the #34 at bathurst a few years back, (all very well until it picked up a puncture and the tyre busted taking the camera with it!), footbox, exhaust, etc.

[roadie]

The one camera angle that I love is behind the 1st corner at Silverstone. It is stationary and as the cars pass through the frame you get to see their amazing agility as they jink to change direction.

Another great camera is the motorised one on one of the back straights at the new Hockenheim. As it moves with the cars out of the hairpin you can really see how traction limited they are but then as the speed increases they just rocket away. It's amazing!

[AutoGrafica]

Good coverage today by the Italian crew and also well done for CBS, on another note Martin Brundle rocks too.

[Voss]

I loved the two low camera angles at Imola today, the first coming into the first chicane, and the one on top of the hill coming down to Rivazza.

They really show the incredible speeds of the cars as they flash past the track side camera... we need more of that please

[man]

Must agree. The camera angles at new circuits such as Malaysia, Bahrain, China in particular are terrible. Of course, its to cater for huge banners in billboards that feature around the circuit.

I always thought it was a pleasure to watch the Australian GP at Adelaide on TV. They had a nice camera position for the Mexican GP at the final Peralta bend too. Beckets at Silverstone is always nice to see on TV.

As for the worst camera positioning, i'm sure the long Mistrial Straight at Paul Ricard got French producers wound up. 15 + seconds of seeing a cars rear end vanishing into the horizon!

[AutoGrafica]

Good points guys... that's what I was thinking as well.