Where to put the camera to film a match

Height comes before everything else

This is what changes readability most, and the only one you cannot fix afterwards. At ground level players overlap: you can no longer tell who is in front of whom, or see the space. From height, the distances between the lines appear — which is exactly what you were trying to show.

In order of preference: a stand, a bank, a clubhouse balcony, a mast or a tall tripod. A two-metre tripod already changes the reading noticeably compared with a tabletop one. At four metres and above, you start seeing the shape of the game.

The angle: from the middle, never from a corner

The ideal position is level with the halfway line, square to the pitch. From a corner the far half becomes tiny and perspective distorts the distances: a gap that looks enormous at one end is in fact perfectly normal.

Filming from behind a goal has one precise use — working on building from the back, on defensive depth — but it does not suit general analysis. Keep that angle for a stated purpose, not for the whole match.

Distance: frame the game, not the ground

The usual mistake is wanting the entire pitch in shot. On a full-size pitch that means backing off until players are a few pixels tall. The right framing holds the area where play is happening, with room on both sides.

In practice: frame both touchlines at the halfway line and accept losing the far corners. If you genuinely need the full width, you need two devices and a panoramic stitch — which is what TactiCam does automatically with two phones.

Sun, wind, rain

• Sun: never facing the lens. Late in the afternoon it drops behind a goal and blows out the image. Work out its path before choosing your side, not at kick-off.
• Wind: the leading cause of unusable footage. A light tripod with a phone on top sways. Weigh the tripod down, or lower it when it gusts — a lower image beats a shaking one.
• Rain: one drop on the lens blurs the rest of the match. A simple cover, or a plastic bag with a hole in it, is enough.

What gets forgotten every other time

1. Check the device is charging. Two hours of recording flattens a battery.
2. Check the free space. A recording that stops at the 40th minute because storage ran out is the most infuriating failure there is.
3. Lock exposure and focus if the app allows it. Otherwise the device refocuses every time someone walks through the foreground.
4. Film in landscape. A vertical video of a football pitch throws away two thirds of the useful information.