Racing
How the Million Dollar Moments are Captured
When Phil Egel began his career providing photo finish services at racecourses in 1987, he had 15 seconds to physically develop a photo and get the image on a slide from the moment the last horse went past the post.
Back then, the image was black and white, and the photo finish room would transform into a darkroom."You'd close the door, close the window after the race, and the room would go dark, said Phil.
"You'd pull the film out of the collection side of the camera. You'd tear it off and process it for four seconds in developer. The developer was at 40 degrees Celsius and basically then fixer for about 10 seconds. Then a quick rinse and a bit of water and detergent and onto a slide and a little light box and a closed-circuit camera set up, and we'd chat with the judges via a little intercom," he said.
These days, numerous technological advances have made the process much simpler, and the software Phil uses is integrated with Racing Australia.
"More often than not, the photo finish is purely just for data so we can get every horse on the field – their times, margins, everything.
"We have to go through the whole field, basically what we are doing is more or less for the Racing Australia database for handicapping and providing information to help place horses for their next race. So we've got to get all that data correct, and we are obviously there to split hairs as well.
"Anything that is a dead heat has a one-or-two pixels gap in it. The ones that are close are always controversial because everyone thinks they won," he said.
Phil is the first photo finish operator in Australia with a new series FinishLynx Vision Pro X camera, which, since February 2025, has been the travelling camera used at metropolitan and provincial race meetings in South Australia.
The $50,000 camera is at the forefront of photo-finish technology, setting new benchmarks for precision and performance in sports timing.
The FinishLynx Vision Pro X camera is able to determine the time to the edge-of-the-nose pixel. No other technology can supply this level of accuracy, better than one thousandth of a second, to the nose.
"The new camera has been required for a long time. It has a very large sensor, so the actual quality of the pictures is three to four times better than the previous camera, so the colour, definition, and sharpness are so much better," said Phil.
"I believe we were the first operators in Australia using the new FinishLynx Vision Pro X camera. The whole product is unique. It's bespoke and fit for purpose, and not something you can find in your local shopping centre.
"It's set up specifically for racing – horses, cycling, greyhounds. It's all about recording finishes and capturing the data in real time," he said.
Phil's business, Eagle Eye Image, also oversees the Super Screens and LED trailer screens on race days right around South Australia.
His advice for anyone wanting to get involved in his area of the industry: make sure you're good at solving problems.
"Photo finish personnel need to be highly equipped with IT knowledge and aptitude. Moving equipment around can be challenging, especially on flights where our equipment is loaded in and out of planes by people who don't necessarily care about what's inside the cases.
"You need an interest in photography as well as IT. You need to know how to make things work – to understand very quickly why something's not working and how to fix it," said Phil.
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