With sports in-stadium income on the decline, stadiums are trying to figure out new revenue streams. But this is a photography blog, so there is a photography angle (no pun intended) involved.
Canon is developing a new “camera system” that will enable viewers to “fly” in the stadium and view the game via any vantage point that they choose.
This video shows how the technology will work, though it feels pretty CGI to me.
Canon says that:
The system comprises of several high-resolution cameras set up around the stadium, which are connected to a network and controlled via software to simultaneously capture the game from multiple viewpoints. Afterwards, image processing technology renders the videos as high-resolution 3-D spatial data where users can freely move a virtual camera around the 3-D space, resulting in video that can be viewed from various different angles and viewpoints
My prediction: this will become a real-time system sooner rather than later, allowing freely moving a camera while the game is on. Next, sports photographers and video recording teams will need to look for a new job.
