While plenty of focus has been put on the two Green, Stinging, smelly pools in Rio this year, the indoor Olympic pool has remained largely out of the spotlight. That’s good news for photographers like Getty Image’s Adam Pretty, who is utilizing new robotic cameras on the pool floor to get shots of Katie Ledecky, Michael Phelps and other swimming superstars this summer. The 19-year Getty veteran said that it used to take him an hour on the bottom of the pool in scuba gear to prepare for every day of swimming. Now, it’s a quick look at a computer screen and he is ready to go in just 30 seconds. While Reuters used similar underwater cameras back at the London Olympics, this is the first year that Getty has used the advanced technology. Unlike cameras above the water, the Canon 1DX Mark II camera housed inside the robotic case isn’t able to move along with the swimmers. Pretty is working with two other Getty photographers in Rio, Al Basso and Clive Rose. The team has two robotic cameras with them, CNN reported.
On an average night at the Olympics, the underwater camera can take roughly 800-900 pictures. Of those, only a handful of the best photos are picked up and used by the mainstream media, Pretty said, but it certainly helps when it’s someone significant.
“I love photographing Michael Phelps,” he said. “He’s always a story, and that definitely helps push your photo out there.”
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