Hello everybody, (sorry for my french English
Since many years I clock myself using the 240 fps video of my iPhone.
But now I'm going to get a POCKET RADAR to make it easier on me.
Since IMO this is the best forum for Softball; from which I learned a lot, I came here (and there also, I admit) to check for reviews on different Radars...
And oh my, HO MY, how many different opinions there are, some confusing and others evidently coming from people who don't get the point!
I read about exit velocitys and decrease of speed during the flight of the pitch.
I read cosine effect etc.
And this lead me to figure out how to pin point my method, and that is what I did and I'm about to share here.
This will help me, next week, to check my Pocket Radar unit (ball coach model) and I will make an attempt to check once and for all its accurancy.
I did this for ATHLA Velocity also, and somedays it is ok but some others (same light / same setting etc.) the app is everywhere in its readings !
So here is how I did proceed:
0/ Camera (iPhone 6 for me) is setted to shoot at 240 fps (you can do all that follows with a 60 fps cam also but tha margin of error will go from 0.25 miles to 1!)
1/ I place the camera in order to shoot a true profile as much as I can. I pitch against a wall at the exact distance (see 2/) since a glove catcher is proe to move on certain pitchs.
2/ First red marker (see pics and/or videos) is 10 feet away from the pitching plate so the lenght of stride and/or release point doesn't affect the maths. This leaves me 36 feet of ball flight to get the AVG speed of the pitch from release to back of home plate.
3/ Every consecutive marker is 2 meters away (6.56 feet) and the last one 0.97 meters from target wall (3.18 feet).
Once I got the video I play it on KINOVEA a great free soft for PC you might know and can find by google or whatever.
This is how I made all the time measurements and markings etc.
Then once I got the timing I used to do the maths by myself and then found this page very convenient that does it for me (and you).
Just enter the datas (feet and time) and click on the "calculate speed" button.
You can not go wrong with this formula !
So just for fun, I measured the loss of speed a ball go through during its flight !
It is impressive how the last meter is critical in speed loss (I might be a tad wrong on this since the distance is so short, a minimal error gets udge)
I am old and don't throw very fast, but I figured out that this will match with the U12/U14 arms of yours
Hope you will enjoy this ! I'm glad to share it here ! My girlfriend now says I'm a nerd ! ah ah ah ! I am !
I will let you know how the comparaison with the PR BC goes !
Cheers,
Play ball !
Videos of the tests :
Since many years I clock myself using the 240 fps video of my iPhone.
But now I'm going to get a POCKET RADAR to make it easier on me.
Since IMO this is the best forum for Softball; from which I learned a lot, I came here (and there also, I admit) to check for reviews on different Radars...
And oh my, HO MY, how many different opinions there are, some confusing and others evidently coming from people who don't get the point!
I read about exit velocitys and decrease of speed during the flight of the pitch.
I read cosine effect etc.
And this lead me to figure out how to pin point my method, and that is what I did and I'm about to share here.
This will help me, next week, to check my Pocket Radar unit (ball coach model) and I will make an attempt to check once and for all its accurancy.
I did this for ATHLA Velocity also, and somedays it is ok but some others (same light / same setting etc.) the app is everywhere in its readings !
So here is how I did proceed:
0/ Camera (iPhone 6 for me) is setted to shoot at 240 fps (you can do all that follows with a 60 fps cam also but tha margin of error will go from 0.25 miles to 1!)
1/ I place the camera in order to shoot a true profile as much as I can. I pitch against a wall at the exact distance (see 2/) since a glove catcher is proe to move on certain pitchs.
2/ First red marker (see pics and/or videos) is 10 feet away from the pitching plate so the lenght of stride and/or release point doesn't affect the maths. This leaves me 36 feet of ball flight to get the AVG speed of the pitch from release to back of home plate.
3/ Every consecutive marker is 2 meters away (6.56 feet) and the last one 0.97 meters from target wall (3.18 feet).
Once I got the video I play it on KINOVEA a great free soft for PC you might know and can find by google or whatever.
This is how I made all the time measurements and markings etc.
Then once I got the timing I used to do the maths by myself and then found this page very convenient that does it for me (and you).
Just enter the datas (feet and time) and click on the "calculate speed" button.
You can not go wrong with this formula !
So just for fun, I measured the loss of speed a ball go through during its flight !
It is impressive how the last meter is critical in speed loss (I might be a tad wrong on this since the distance is so short, a minimal error gets udge)
I am old and don't throw very fast, but I figured out that this will match with the U12/U14 arms of yours
Hope you will enjoy this ! I'm glad to share it here ! My girlfriend now says I'm a nerd ! ah ah ah ! I am !
I will let you know how the comparaison with the PR BC goes !
Cheers,
Play ball !
Videos of the tests :
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