Quote:
Originally Posted by andymays
Outside.
Hollywood had a big problem last year with a race where the camera snapped the shot before they hit the line (It was a Machowsky runner involved on the turf I think). It was a big controversy for about a week. At first glance that looks like what happened here and it may have but I'm guessing outside.
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Photo finish camera do not 'snap a shot'. They do not operate like a 'normal' camera.
They are set up on the finish line and the shutter is opened up and stays open for the entire field to pass and then closed. What they do is record every horse passing a single point (the finish line) as they acutally pass that point. The film (or in this case the computer) runs at approximately the same speed as the horses are running, so each horse gets laid down on the image relative to each other as they pass the wire.
There are only two ways that for what you described to have actually occurred.
When evaluating a photo, the placing judges (or the photo finish operator) move the film (or computer image) through a stationary (and square to the image) line which represents the finish line. If they don't actually line up each horse's nose properly on that line there could in theory be an error. I can tell you on close photos there is a lot of care given to this process.
If the photo finish camera was not installed properly 'on the wire'. The camera would still have been accurate as to determining the order of finish at the point it was aimed, it just would not have been the 'true' finish line.