Hi All,

During the shelter in place I've been catching up on a lot of great ITTF Tournaments I missed 

But one thing disappoints me. 

I'm curious why is it that ITTF can NEVER get a really good camera angle for watching Table Tennis ? 

Its such a shame being in the 'nosebleed section', this camera angle makes the matches pretty much unwatchable. 

Very sad that you can't see the actual real ball speed, height, trajectory or true ball arch, this "high up in the ceiling" view ruins great matches for the spectator.

Basically its THE most unwatchable position possible, i'm wondering when the ITTF are going to actually give us spectators (which are mostly players) the preferred lower camera angle so we can actually enjoy watching the game and not see the table as a squashed matchbox.

Let me know your thoughts.

The kind of angle most people like can not be shot from too far away because people will be walking in front of the camera.  It can not be shot in the big arenas from closer to the table because it would block too many people's views.  They would probably need to bring seating in closer and only have seating on 3 sides to be able to film the angles a lot of people like.  If I remember correctly almost all those liked videos come from smaller club environments.  

Not that it is impossible for them to figure out.  But probably a whole lot harder to do in those big arenas.  Also their money comes from the in person audience mostly, so they most likely do no want to do anything that would interfere with the "paying customer" experience.

Just my thoughts, without too much analysis and fact checking.

Mark

At least at bigger tournaments the TV production involves several cameras. They even have several cameras at table hight, but they choose not to show that view as the main camera.

I went to two world championships and at one they even had a crane obstructing the view of the spectators (Düsseldorf 2013).

My guess is that the "bird eye" view is chosen for three reasons:

- it is the traditional view to broadcast tennis events. TV broadcasting companies likely have more experience with tennis.

- you get a tv picture that is not obstructed from a busy background

- you have the sponsors clearly in the picture.

Unfortunately the "bird eye" view shows the game only in 2-D. All of the dynamic the players have and the spin the ball has cannot be shown.

I think this is very unfortunate and I am always happy if I can find private records of big table tennis events.

For me the view slightly above table hight is the best view to show the day dynamic of our sport.

By the way I am not the only one who thinks that table hight is the best perspective! Almost every picture of professional photographers is taken from this perspective. Of course they know how to take good looking pictures.

You make a great point about doing it the way it has always been done.  Tradition is a true innovation killer.  Just look at the high  jump.

Mark

 

If I see recordings like this, I wonder why ITTF even started to use the "bird-eye" view:

WTTF , ITTF please take note. 

Please see the amazing difference of quality for the spectator with the correct camera positioning.

Our sport cant survive with this outdated amateur recording angle that your currently using.

You have to change. 

And the better the match is the more frustrating it is to have to put up with.