r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/InsaneMocktail • Sep 08 '26

Video University of Waterloo Students Launch Rocket Breaking World Record

41k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

202

u/fitnessexpress Sep 08 '26 edited Sep 09 '26

Fisheye lens on that camera makes it seem like you're seeing the curvature of the earth

EDIT: Oof. This isn't a flat-earth comment. It's only pointing out that the lens is exaggerating the curvature so it seems the horizon is more curved than it is (ergo the earth seems to be a smaller orb and the rocket seems to be further away than it is).

27

u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 08 '26

At that height you would be able to but no where to that extreme.

4

u/pyrojackelope Sep 08 '26

Yeah, there's one point where it stretches it out to an egg shape. Their achievement is still incredible, but it would have been nice if they used a normal lens.

13

u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 08 '26

Probably went with lense just to capture "more".

-10

u/pyrojackelope Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 09 '26

You're telling me they built a rocket that almost went into space and they couldn't be bothered to hire someone to properly film it because this was "more"? Okay....

Edit: Sorry for pointing out your lack of enthusiasm for optics. As I said before, this is an incredible achievement. Everyone on the team should feel proud of themselves, except for the camera guy that was for some reason not hired.

11

u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 09 '26

64k feet is not almost into space. The karman line is 328k feet above sea level. There is no camera guy. Its a camera mounted on the rocket, they used this lense to give a wider area of view.

3

u/Spicy_toad Sep 09 '26

You can hear the guy attached to the rocket breathing and he pulls a parachute.

2

u/pyrojackelope Sep 09 '26

There is no camera guy

This immediately tells me you have no concept of what it takes to accomplish a project like this. There could have been, there wasn't.

3

u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 09 '26

How in the fuck could have there been a camera guy this rocket isn't exactly big enough to hold a person are you on fucking glue

2

u/Spicy_toad Sep 09 '26

You can hear the camera guy breathing and the wobbly camera is from the forces of the rocket he is trying to hold it steady and he pulls parachute at end.

1

u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 09 '26

You can hear him say " Hold my beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

7

u/Paramedickhead Sep 09 '26

Optics = weight

Weight = diminished performance

They “couldn’t be bothered” because the inclusion of extra lenses may have prevented them from a record breaking launch.

1

u/pyrojackelope Sep 11 '26

Yes, they couldn't be bothered to record their world record properly. Are you and the other guy seriously brain damaged? My bad.

23

u/themikecampbell Sep 08 '26

Came here to say this. When adrenaline junkies use it as the scramble or bike across peaks, I immediately downvote it as the fish lens makes it look more precarious.

Same with speeding up/slowing down to mess with scale

6

u/RonShreds Sep 09 '26

Can't you just appreciate it knowing it is fish eye pov? I love super view, it captures so much more including thr snowboard or bike, or the feet of the scramble. In my opinion (and I have played with all my gopro settings over the years) it is the most enjoyable lens style.

4

u/TrulyOutrageous42 Sep 09 '26

I think it's the combination of the specific types of people using that specific type of capture in the specific places they tend to. They're not doing it to see more of the precariousness or situation, they're doing it to make it SEEM more precarious than it really is in the otherwise not-that-sketchy place they're biking/boarding.

1

u/themikecampbell Sep 09 '26

I meant to say “in order to make it look more precarious”

I can enjoy a fish lens, but not when it purposefully distorts it in a way to make things more intense than they are.

I’d rather appreciate the scene in its original focus. It’s like whale breaching videos where it’s slowed down to mislead the viewer about the size. I’d rather just enjoy an already epic video of a whale, I don’t need it exaggerated

1

u/Pristine_Raise2908 Sep 08 '26

Yeah they clearly faked it, clouds are all the way up in the sky, a rocket could never get above them

14

u/Give-Me-The-Bat Sep 08 '26

Obviously fake. I didn’t see a single Care Bear on top of those clouds

1

u/photosendtrain Sep 09 '26

We all know any object flying this high would break through the firmament and escape the simulation.

3

u/Ok_Celebration_6265 Sep 08 '26

You know that they didn’t see… the local sun where did it go?

1

u/DiggWuzBetter Sep 09 '26

Yeah that’s a good point, adds a bit of an illusion for sure.

1

u/twitch1982 Sep 09 '26

Halo/Ringworld confirmed at 1:16 in the video.

1

u/Hope_to_retire Sep 09 '26

Lol, I rushed to the comments for some flat earth point of views, yours was unintentional.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 08 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 08 '26

Or anything else in the observable solar system.

0

u/Shoddy_Fish31 Sep 09 '26

But we as educated people all know that the earth is flat so

-3

u/Pleasant_Durian_1501 Sep 09 '26

So the Earth is flat then? It’s all optical illusions?

-1

u/Zickityzickrubin Sep 09 '26

Same trick NASA uses