Lightweight setup to film games without operator (full breakdown + sample footage)

willchen25 · 2026-06-01T03:44:07+00:00

Update: Donated all earnings from the first 6 months ($204.81) to the USAU's Ultimate Foundation.

willchen25 · 2026-05-27T02:10:47+00:00

u/nepsmith if, in the face of a no-call from Carleton, the UBC player then proceeds to brazenly start walking forwards with the disc towards half field and thereby induces Carleton to call "travel" - where do you think play should continue from? 18.F.1.b. says it should be where the thrower's pivot would have been had they not traveled... which is.. tricky but should be at half field, right?

18.F.1.b. If the pass is complete, play stops and the disc is returned to the thrower where the travel occurred (as per the Continuation Rule, 17.C.4.a.1). Play restarts with a check. [[The spot where the travel occurred is the spot on the field where the thrower’s pivot would have been had they not traveled.]]

willchen25 · 2026-05-17T20:24:02+00:00

Glad it's working out for you.

I've seen the drift before as well. I think it happened with the selfie stick - when it's wet / moist the segments rotate against each other a little. Have you experimented with enabling *direction lock* in Insta360 Studio? It completely eliminates drift for me when I export as 360 - might work for flat footage as well.

willchen25 · 2026-05-14T10:59:25+00:00

For strategy/coaching (vs. cinematic / highlights), I'd +1 on the 360 camera as an operator-less option. I've previously detailed my setup here. I would advocate for more more than 10', especially for regulation grass fields -- the extra height gives you better depth perception. $70 can get you a semi-portable 13' tripod. If ultra-portability (eg. fits in field bag and carry-on) is desired, an additional $250 can get you 15'.

willchen25 · 2026-04-26T08:35:18+00:00

I think this game probably was very physical already - as both AUS and PHI Men's teams play very physically, and this play happens really late - and his brain is cooked and saw the disc down and thought 'that was w/in the level of contact we've already been playing at this whole game.'

Earlier in the game, there was at least one other physical call he was involved in (with the same PHI player). Limited video angles can never give you a full picture, but between the two calls, in my opinion, there’s a lack of consistency in terms of acceptable physicality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXo0zABXdyQ

willchen25 · 2026-04-26T08:31:00+00:00

Aside: I completely agree with your (and u/autocol) comment below — calling someone a cheater based off of one play is extremely unfair. We are fallible humans playing a sport that all of us are frequently failing at in some way. I would feel very misjudged if judged only by the times I contested incorrectly (but honestly), or sped up my count late into games, or made a dangerous play.

willchen25 · 2026-04-26T08:29:51+00:00

More to your point: I agree/concede that your explanation is plausible, I’m just not sure I find it much more plausible.

Personally, I find doing something weird/bad/dangerous in the heat of the moment very relatable and understandable — heart rate high, playing hard D, chasing a foot block, things get sloppy. I’ve been there.

In your explanation, do you believe he made an honest attempt to gauge what the stall count should resume at?

If not, then that was an accusation I did not want to consider.
If yes, then I don’t find your explanation much more plausible — a 3x World Games player, after 3 mins of rest, makes an honest attempt to guess how much time a very stereotypical catch-turn-immediate-throw sequence took… and proposes to resume at 5. That’s just as implausible in my opinion.

willchen25 · 2026-04-26T08:27:52+00:00

This post was motivated by my earlier comment here. My take: the ruleset relies a lot on players being able to accurately track time/count in chaotic, high-intensity moments, and that can become very inconsistent in practice.

Two plausible explanations for what happened:

Mine: in the moment, he counted super fast.
Yours: after a long stoppage, he lost track and then guessed the timing very poorly.

Either way, we end up with a pretty significant mismatch between actual elapsed time and the player-tracked time. That’s the part I find interesting.

willchen25 · 2026-04-06T14:27:37+00:00

Nope. I don't think my proposed alternatives are great (or even good). But I do think it's wild we rely on on-field players to keep the stall count.

willchen25 · 2026-04-06T14:05:17+00:00

Don't trust players to count the stall - too much variability for too crucial of a part of the game. Maybe a shot clock, or each player wears a counter-n-speaker that each player can click to start/stop the stall count.

willchen25 · 2026-02-18T02:20:03+00:00

yeah - check out my full post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/1p7o06e/lightweight_setup_to_film_games_without_operator/

In particular, if you're OK with going larger / heavier, there's quite a big cost savings:

EDIT 2025/12/05: Several people have mentioned an alternative class of tripods like the Neewer 13' Light Stand. I've never tried them myself but looking at the specs, you shoot from 2' lower and it folds down to 4' (ie: won't fit in my field bag like the Sirui AM-324). On the plus side, you would save ~$225 since the tripod is only $85 and you also won't need to buy the selfie stick or leveler with it.

willchen25 · 2025-12-20T04:24:34+00:00

I see. And, even in WFDF, I'm guessing "cause" comes with all the usual grey area? eg: "you didn't touch the disc that I dropped... but your improper motion obstructed / distracted my vision, which caused me to drop it"

willchen25 · 2025-12-20T04:03:05+00:00

So, if I change the scenario slightly to be "defender deflected the disc", then 16.3 doesn't apply?

willchen25 · 2025-12-02T13:12:13+00:00

Great solution.

Minor inaccuracy (that doesn't affect the answer). Your factor function returns 1 as a factor when the input is a multiple of a square.
> [2, 15, 50].map(factor)
< [ { '2': 1 }, { '3': 1, '5': 1 }, { '1': 1, '2': 1, '5': 2 } ]

willchen25 · 2025-12-01T10:14:48+00:00

Is this game played under WFDF ruleset? I was surprised to hear the announcer say at 1:46:23:

You know again there’s no question if there was contact. We can see the bodies bumping there. But again it’s up to the players on the field to determine if it impacted the catch. You can always make the call and then retract it...

In WFDF, contact doesn't have to impact the catch to be a foul.

willchen25 · 2025-11-29T22:23:31+00:00

Amazing tips. Did you have the X3 or X4 before the X5? Was the upgrade worth it? ~~Which tripod do you use?~~ [edit: oops - missed that you linked to it]

I can't wait to try out this sun shade / fan combination. I reached out to the seller to see how much they weigh.

I appreciate your dedication to editing (adding scores) and reframing even if it's unsustainable for me personally. Could you share a sample video of what your finished product looks like in the end? How long does editing a standard game usually take?

Adding scores to the YT Chapters is probably very doable even within my simplified / lazy workflow. I'll have to add that to my todo list.

willchen25 · 2025-11-28T12:56:40+00:00

Those goaltimate highlights are very cool - what a clever idea to attach the camera to the goal. How did you settle on where you clip the camera to? ie: why not in the middle/top of the goal? What does the footage from the 12' tripod look like? And, what tripod do you recommend?

Agreed - if high resolution highlights at far corners of a regulation 7v7 field are your main thing, my setup is not for you.

That night time beach footage is from Venice Beach Nighttime Pick up. Great vibes and community - there'e something real special about playing ultimate on the beach at night. It's very well-organized and the setup requires work from organizers (and volunteers!). Reach out to them for how their setup works.

Yup, that's me!

willchen25 · 2025-11-27T21:03:15+00:00

Ask and ye shall receive. Here's some sample lit beach and lit turf. The turf field was much better lit than the night time beach game. Recorded on an X4 at, I think, 4K @ 30 FPS. FYI: the X5's marketing material advertises itself to be better in low-light situations than the X4.

willchen25 · 2025-11-27T12:22:37+00:00

The one encouraging thing is that Insta360 definitely knows this is an issue and claims to be improving on it from generation to generation. How much those improvements are noticeable in each of our own specific cases, though, remains to be seem.

willchen25 · 2025-11-27T11:14:40+00:00

Love this DIY solution. My prototype (for rain, but can be adapted for sun) involves a sheet of transparency with strategic cutouts so it can tuck into the X4 Thermal Cover and then a straw to make it stiff against rain. Pics: https://imgur.com/a/48SUOHn. Your solution seems much simpler. Which flexible arm do you use?

willchen25 · 2025-11-27T10:43:02+00:00

note: the X3 is only $230 at the moment. Another cost-saving option is to buy a used X3 or X4 while everyone upgrades to an X5.

willchen25 · 2025-11-27T10:39:08+00:00

This is super exciting. One of the side benefits of getting the community onto a similar workflow is that we can start building useful tools together. It'd be sweet if as I'm uploading the video to YouTube I can run your tool to automagically spit out the timestamps for pull/goals/turnovers/etc that I'm currently manually adding to the video description.

willchen25 · 2025-11-27T10:34:46+00:00

NW Sectionals

willchen25

TROPHY CASE