What photo finish cameras were used for the nags at the track

[John Kasaian]

I'm working at our District Fair this week and every morning I walk past the horse racing track, which caused me to recollect this:
I remember as a kid being fascinated by a trolley that would bring a cassette (or maybe a complete camera) from the infield of the track to the track steward's office near the grandstands. This has probably long been replaced with digital capture but back then a contact print would be hastily printed of the first horses crossing the finish line to prove which horse won "by a nose."
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing some "photo finish" contact prints, I'm thinking 5x7s although I could be mistaken.
An idea what kind of camera race tracks used for this job? And how they were fired to capture the moment of victory?

[Louie Powell]

I remember a presentation by Andy Davidhazy of RIT on this subject many years ago at a meeting of the Schenectady Photographic Society.

Race tracks used slit cameras. The 'shutter' was actually a fixed aperture slit aligned with the finish line, and the film moved behind it at approximately the same speed as the horses. As a result, the final image was strip of images of the horses in exactly the order the crossed the finish line.

Davidhazy was an expert on non-traditional variations on camera design, including such things a peripheral cameras (similar to the panoramic x-ray used today by dentists, where a slit camera rotated around the subject recording a continuous image of the outer periphery of the camera. Interesting if perhaps a bit strange when used for portraiture. Davidhazy would take old conventional cameras and modify the mechanics to produce slit cameras, peripheral cameras and other oddities.

https://edge.twinspires.com/racing/the-science-of-racing-the-photo-finish-camera/

[John Kasaian]

Thanks! That's fascinating information.

[Robert Bowring]

I think some places used high speed Hulcher Cameras.

[Bernice Loui]

Strip/slit cameas or high speed cameras place great demands on the lens ability to gather light ala large lens aperture. As exampled by this Canon EF 300mm f1.8 used on a horse race finish line stip camera..

https://petapixel.com/2017/04/27/canon-300mm-f1-8-yes-monster-lens-exists/

“Back then it was done with filmstrip or timing negative film,” he continues. “I would develop immediately after the race it would take about 8 seconds using dektol at 140 degrees and dip and dunk by hand. When digital took over film things became so much more advanced and so did the lenses.”



Bernice