How to Film Your Swing for Analysis (Angles, Settings, Checklist)

By BK, Athletic Hitting Development
Complete Hitters Are Built… It’s Earned!

Film the swing from two angles, the open side and directly behind, with the phone chest high, in landscape and slow motion. Get the whole body and the bat in frame through the finish, record 5 tee and 5 live swings, and use the same setup every time.

I have looked at a lot of swing video. Most of it I cannot use. The phone is held at the knees, the bat leaves the frame, or the clip is a vertical sliver from 80 feet away.

Good video is the cheapest coaching tool a parent has. Ten minutes of setup turns a blurry clip into something a coach can read like a scouting report. Here is exactly how to do it.

1. What are the best angles to film a baseball swing?

You need two views. One without the other leaves blind spots.

• Open side (face-on). Stand on the side the hitter faces, square to their chest, in line with home plate. For a right-handed hitter, that is the first-base side of the plate area. This shows posture, stride, the load, hip and shoulder turn and the finish.
• Directly behind. Stand behind the hitter, in line with the pitcher, a little off to the side so the catcher area is clear. This shows stride direction, bat path into the zone and whether the barrel works on plane with the pitch.
• Chest high. Hold the phone at the hitter's chest height, not yours if you are standing tall. Low angles make every swing look uphill; high angles flatten everything.

Use a tripod or a cheap fence mount if you can. A steady phone at the same height every session matters more than an expensive camera.

2. What phone settings should I use?

• Landscape, always. Turn the phone sideways so you get the stride, the bat and the finish in one frame.
• Slow motion at 120 or 240 fps for a coach. Normal video blurs the barrel. Slow motion lets a coach step through the swing frame by frame.
• Uploading to SwingChecker™ V? Use normal speed. Its analysis reads real-time movement, so slow-motion clips get sent back for a re-film. Film one side clip and one rear clip, one full swing each, 5–45 seconds, with only the hitter in frame.
• Lock focus and exposure. On most phones you press and hold on the hitter until it locks. This stops the camera hunting when the bat moves.
• No zoom. Digital zoom costs detail. Move the phone closer instead.
• Clear storage first. Slow-motion clips are big. Nothing kills a session like a full phone.

3. How far away should the camera be, and what about light?

Back up until the whole hitter and the whole bat fit in frame from setup through finish, with a little room on each side. For most youth hitters that is roughly 10 to 15 feet. If the bat tip leaves the frame at the finish, you are too close.

Put the sun or the brightest light behind the camera, not behind the hitter. A hitter shot against the sky turns into a silhouette. A plain background, like a cage net or a wall, beats a busy one with other players moving.

Same angles. Same height. Same distance. Every time.

That is the rule that makes video useful over months. When the setup never changes, the only thing that changes is the swing. That is how you see real progress, or real problems.

4. What should my hitter actually record?

1. 5 tee swings from each angleThe tee shows the move with no timing pressure, so a coach sees the swing the hitter owns.
2. 5 front toss or live swings from each angleMovement and timing expose what the tee hides, like a late load or a stride that drifts.
3. Game at-bats when you canGame swings are the truth. Ask a teammate's parent to film from behind the backstop if the side angle is not allowed.
4. Say what happenedAdd a note: pitch type, result, what the hitter felt. A coach cannot hear the hitter's head from video.

Film at the end of the warm-up, not the end of a long practice. A tired hitter's swing is a different swing, and it will send a coach chasing the wrong fix.

Ten good swings beat fifty random ones. Let your hitter warm up first, then film game-speed swings, not lazy practice cuts.

5. How do I name clips, and what mistakes should I avoid?

Make one album per hitter. Name clips with the date, angle and drill, like 2026-10-12_side_tee. When you send video for an online swing analysis, a coach can compare this month to last month in seconds.

• Phone at the knees or overhead. Keep it chest high.
• Vertical video. Half the swing is out of frame.
• Shooting into the sun. You get a shadow, not a hitter.
• Changing angles every session. You lose the ability to compare.
• Only filming the tee. The tee swing and the game swing are often two different swings. Read Your Tee Is Lying to You.

6. What can a coach see on video, and what can't they?

Good video shows a lot: posture, load, stride direction, sequence, bat path, contact point and finish. It shows whether a hitter keeps the strong positions I call Mechanically Advantaged Angles (MAA), which every AHD hitter learns to own.

Video cannot show feel, effort, fear of the ball or what the hitter saw out of the pitcher's hand. That is the Hitting Processor and the mental approach, and it takes questions, not just frames. So send the video and the story. Then start with the free SwingChecker to rank the top priority across all 4 pillars, and use the Complete Hitter Masterclass to build it in order. Don't collect drills. Build a complete hitter.

AHD • BACKSPIN2/2

THELESSON.

• Good video is cheap coaching
• Two angles, no blind spots
• Game swings tell the truth
• Send the story with the clip

Complete Hitters Are Built…Earned.

AHDBackSpinAthletic Hitting Development

Want to go deeper? Read How SwingChecker Finds What to Fix First and How to Know If a Swing Change Is Working.

Quick answers

Don’t collect drills. Build a complete hitter.

Complete Hitters Are Built… It’s Earned!