Getty Uses Underwater Robot to Photograph Olympic Swimmers

Posted on August 9, 2016

You have probably seen some of the photographs of Olympic swimmers taken from underneath the water. Those photographs are taken by a robot that contains a camera. The robot can be operated by remote control.

SCUBA certified Sport photographer Al Bello works with the underwater robotic cameras. He tells CNN/Money, "In the past, with a traditional submerged static remote camera, you'd have to visualize the photos you wanted ahead of time and think about what race and stroke you want to capture. It was limiting; you could only guess where the swimmer was going to be when they came into the frame."

There is a battle for pool positioning. CNN/Money says there are as many as ten organizations after these underwater Olympic shots. The agencies are only allowed to have one camera in the pool and photographers can only check on the robots between swim sessions. Take a look:

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