I got a golf camera. It was much needed.

I got a couple financial contributions from relatives for Christmas that allowed me to purchase a golf camera setup. I got the Casio FH-25, a high-speed 16GB SDHC card, and a portable tripod. Even though I did bargain shopping for the last two, they're very nice. For those interested, the tripod I got was the Vista Explorer. It's just $30 and sturdy, adjustable, and light-weight. Definitely recommended for those shopping in the $30 range. Anyway, tonight was the first night I actually used my camera on myself. Before now I'd just tinkered with the settings, but today as I putted about after my wife and baby were asleep, I decided to film my putting stroke. Just for fun. I'd read on here that what you feel like you're doing in your swing and what you're actually doing can be very different. But I figured that being just a simple putting stroke, how far off could my perception of my stroke be from my actual stroke? Answer: A light year. I started with a face-on view, and in the the very first swing I noticed that I was tensing my right wrist on the initial take-away, which resulted in a very slight bit of cupping in the wrist. I was shocked. I have worked for a while on getting my wrists completely motionless. How could I be flexing it as my [i]first[/i] move? Almost in disbelief I picked up my putter to try a stroke. Sure enough, I could tell that I was every so slightly bracing my right wrist to support the putter weight on the take-away, and it was actually resulting in a slight bit of cupping. I was mis-aligning my stroke by about 0.5* to 1* before I was even 2 inches into my backswing. I did some more swings and more videos and got a better feeling for a takeaway with minimal to no right wrist tensing. It wasn't hard to correct when I knew I needed to avoid it, but before tonight I had no idea I needed to avoid it. The tensing was subtle enough that I didn't notice it before, probably because it just blended in with the natural resistance of the putter against my swing, but it was there nonetheless. Already, the camera had shown me something eye-opening. Then I did a DTL shot. Things were even worse. I realized that since last spring, I've slowly shifted my putting stance farther and farther away from the ball. The ball was much farther out from my body that I had thought it was, my hands and arms were much more detached from my body than I realized, and my putter toe was pointed much higher than I had thought it was. Based on ball placement to my body and my posture, I quite literally looked like I was about to hit an 8-iron. (And it's probably my dedication to iron practice in the place of most of my putting practice that was responsible for this change. I think that I just slowly adjusted my stance to that of one I'd use for an iron.) No wonder my putting has been so much more inconsistent, it's not just a lack of practice, I'm set up terribly for it. The results weren't all bad, though. My wrists were solid (except for the initial take-away), my posture was as straight as I thought it was, and I did a decent job not moving anything but my shoulders. But those were the only good things I remember seeing. So, I already agree that a camera can show you a completely different side of your swing, and that's just with putting. It's definitely a great training aid. A little after we get Daylight Savings Time back and I can make it to the range after work, I'm going to sign up for evolvr so that the experts can laugh at my swing along with me. I considered posting the videos, but since I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with videoing myself, I'm going to be very selective in what videos I post. I don't want to annoy people with too many swing posts. :-P

Wait until you view your full swing in slow motion.  It'll make you feel like a novice.  I have put in some time this winter working on my move, and used our Kodak PlaySport to take a look.  It was like watching a horror movie.  I seem to have developed a nice little head lifting issue that I never "felt" myself doing.  Back to the drawing board...

Best of luck!

of course, duly noted. I think anyone would've caught the things I mentioned above, though. I'm pretty sure I didn't use to have them.

Quote:"I have put in some time this winter working on my move, and used our Kodak PlaySport to take a look."

I have a Zi8, how is yours working out for you and how did you do it?

-John

I just now started using the camera.  I have a buddy that I golf with, we take turns recording a few swings with contact.  There are a couple things I was really looking for: am I taking the club too far inside; am I casting or throwing the club away.  Watching playback in slow motion will reveal the answers.  I just hook it up to the TV.  I don't have a "golf swing analyzer software package" on the computer!