Olympics: Day 3

Been here now for five days. Nothing really that exciting going on (as a photo­grapher, I mean: haven’t done any mind blowing imagery nor seen any either) — except that it is always fun and extremely rewarding to be working with the best of the best. 1200 photo­graphers (if I remember correctly) — some of the best known photo­graphers in the world. This is my sixth games so I have had the honor and privilege to meet some of these great photo­graphers — and learn from them — which is maybe the most important thing I always bring with me from the games.

For the first two days I was covering shooting… I mean, as a sport: pistol and rifle.

Nothing really to write home about, it is very hard sport to shoot as you are all the time behind the athletes and they try to remain as cool/calm as possible.

But I got one or two (half) decent shots.

Yesterday I did my first swimming. Again nothing that spectacular — sure, did the standard Phelps-image and got one which I think is ok shot of the Finnish Emilia Pikka­rainen doing butterfly.

But the real treat was meeting again with my old friend Michael Dalder from Reuters by the pool. He was actually operating an underwater camera remotely from the poolside and he gave me link to this video of them (Reuters) testing the setup before the games.

remote camera Test 1:30 from Michael Dalder on Vimeo.

Here is a glimpse on Micheal’s laptop over his shoulder on the side of the pool where he is controlling his 1D‑X thru the EOS Utility program. The black box you see in the actual video is the robot head used in e.g. the leaking oil rig images from the Gulf of Mexico, if you do remember. It takes pressure down to 3000m… and those of you who know anything about diving know what that means. Pretty impressive. And that is now at the bottom of the Olympic pool.

The remotes in the Olympic pools have to be painted white, so all the housings have been repainted. Also, the cables have to be white — and as standard ethernet cables are grey, they have been covered with this white plastic sock…

Here’s another image of the platform we were shooting from. Mike is in the lower right corner.

Reuters runs a pretty big operation over here. About fifty photo­graphers — plus text and TV. On the actual stadium they have 16 cameras on tethered robots which can all be controlled by a photo­grapher sitting infront of screen remotely. Options for aiming, setting, zooming…

I had a chance of visiting their offices here at the MPC (Main Press Center) — and I am telling you, it’s quite impressive operation. And I am very excited also as I got invited to go and see how the remote set-ups work once track and field gets on the way… so stay tuned.