

Low-Tech Camera Uses No-Tech Gravity to Drop Viewers Into the Pool - bentoner
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121856740339434067.html

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mattmaroon
Pretty neat. Technically things all fall at the same rate in a vacuum, but
will vary slightly due to air resistance. I wonder if the camera was designed
at all to have similar aerodynamics to a diver, or if the probably tiny
difference is just easily accounted for by the pan and tilt.

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stcredzero
Once they're done with the tumbling, divers are minimizing their drag. I'd be
surprised if they actually got to terminal velocity by the time they hit the
water. Drag increases roughly with the square of the velocity. If they are
nowhere near their terminal velocity, the effect of drag is going to be pretty
low for most of their fall. If the divecam's terminal velocity is also
suitably high, then the difference in acceleration won't be very much in the
first several seconds.

IIRC, terminal velocity of someone trying to be streamlined is over 120 mph.
9.8 meters per second square is about 22 miles per hour. Drag is going to rear
it's head in a big way only after 5 or 6 seconds. By the time drag force
starts to really shoot up, the divers have already hit the water.

Okay, I just Googled terminal velocity. We should probably expect 160-200 mph
terminal velocity for an Olympic diver.

<http://hypertextbook.com/facts/JianHuang.shtml>

(For those with access to dive video, who want to check my reasoning out,
remember to start counting seconds only after the divers start going _down_!)

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stcredzero
When I was an undergraduate, an adjunct professor in film did something like
this, to film a point-of-view shot for a character falling to their death.

It involved, a rope, a camera, a pulley, and some work gloves. Very effective,
but low tech.

