A more flattering webcam?
July 6, 2022 4:35 AM Subscribe
Video on my entry-level Logitech webcam is just ugly: flat, desaturated, harsh, painfully detailed, way too wide-angle for my space, grey-dim or else glaring and blown-out even with my best efforts at textbook lighting. Meanwhile, minor YouTubers seem to post footage that's rich, glow-y and flattering, even to their ordinary looks and surroundings. This feels like a lens, sensor and/or internal image processing issue, and more expensive webcams don't discuss those features much. Nonetheless, is it possible a better camera might fix this? If so, which one?
Details in case it matters: I'm aware 99% of the advice out there is "correct your lighting!". I have a ~12" ring light in front of me, lamp beside me, have tried a fill light to illuminate my background in the past, and it doesn't seem to make any difference, but I'm open to other lighting suggestions if they'd help.
A major problem is the wide-angle lens: I'm using a small corner of a mostly unstyled room, so ultra-wide-angle means I need to back up against my plants and crowd the camera close in order to cut out the periphery. Access to shallower depth of field would be great as well. However, it's not clear that more expensive webcams actually give you a better lens or more zoom/ crop control?
I also have a circa-2012 crop-sensor dSLR lying around, but so far haven't seen great options for a streaming connection that won't overtax my poor laptop.
I have probably $200 max to spend on fixing this right now, but I could consider saving up if there's a slam-dunk option north of that. Any ideas?
Details in case it matters: I'm aware 99% of the advice out there is "correct your lighting!". I have a ~12" ring light in front of me, lamp beside me, have tried a fill light to illuminate my background in the past, and it doesn't seem to make any difference, but I'm open to other lighting suggestions if they'd help.
A major problem is the wide-angle lens: I'm using a small corner of a mostly unstyled room, so ultra-wide-angle means I need to back up against my plants and crowd the camera close in order to cut out the periphery. Access to shallower depth of field would be great as well. However, it's not clear that more expensive webcams actually give you a better lens or more zoom/ crop control?
I also have a circa-2012 crop-sensor dSLR lying around, but so far haven't seen great options for a streaming connection that won't overtax my poor laptop.
I have probably $200 max to spend on fixing this right now, but I could consider saving up if there's a slam-dunk option north of that. Any ideas?
A quick search suggests its possible to use a phone as a web cam. Probably, "there's an app for that."
Never tried it myself, though.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:17 AM on July 6, 2022
Never tried it myself, though.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:17 AM on July 6, 2022
Almost any reasonably recent phone camera will outperform almost any webcam on video quality. Webcams are optimized more for low bandwidth than anything else.
Lots of YouTube content gets made with phone cameras, and people who appear to know what they're about almost always seem to upgrade their microphones before their cameras.
posted by flabdablet at 5:18 AM on July 6, 2022
Lots of YouTube content gets made with phone cameras, and people who appear to know what they're about almost always seem to upgrade their microphones before their cameras.
posted by flabdablet at 5:18 AM on July 6, 2022
If you're in the Apple ecosystem, Reincubate's Camo lets you use your iPhone as a webcam for (most) apps and it's free to try, at least to see if it's better or not. It was OK in my experience, but mounting the phone felt like it would be annoying and since I was using it for an exam I figured the fewer moving parts between the proctor and the video the better.
Apple is sherlocking it with updates to Continuity Camera in macOS Ventura in a few months, but I suspect Reincubate will still offer more options.
posted by Kyol at 5:42 AM on July 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
Apple is sherlocking it with updates to Continuity Camera in macOS Ventura in a few months, but I suspect Reincubate will still offer more options.
posted by Kyol at 5:42 AM on July 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
Similar to Camo, I've used droidcam on both iOS and Android devices paired with Windows machines. It works well and the back camera on my old Pixel 2 XL is way better than webcams. But, you have to figure out mounting hardware (suction-cup car dashboard mount was my solution) and it's still clunkier than a regular camera. I recently got a Logitech Streamcam and that is quite nice while also being plug and play - enough better than the other cheap webcams that I have and not enough worse than a Droidcam setup that I just use that. (I got mine off eBay too, used, for like half the cost of it new.) It does have some more options with zooming and white balance and stuff but you're not getting real options here - it's all processing. (It's also not wide angle, which is nice.)
If your DSLR has an HDMI out, or some way to get HDMI out, The Verge (amongst others) has a guide to using that as your webcam. (This is the secret sauce.)
Keep in mind video conferencing software will strip a lot of the life out of your video anyway so temper your expectations. (That said, it's definitely noticeable - people with better camera setups pretty obviously have better camera setups.)
posted by mrg at 5:55 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
If your DSLR has an HDMI out, or some way to get HDMI out, The Verge (amongst others) has a guide to using that as your webcam. (This is the secret sauce.)
Keep in mind video conferencing software will strip a lot of the life out of your video anyway so temper your expectations. (That said, it's definitely noticeable - people with better camera setups pretty obviously have better camera setups.)
posted by mrg at 5:55 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
I use an Elgato can link to turn my old DSLR into a webcam. The results are great, but the setup is finicky. I had to buy a fake battery/power supply that needs to be removed everytime I want to turn it on. I need to set the zoom to 1.1 or else I look like plastic. It needs to be in the exact right mode or it overheats. And on and on. If you go this route I'd recommend searching YouTube for your specific camera to see if there are any guides on how to set it up for livestreaming. I never would have gotten everything right on my own.
posted by phil at 6:14 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by phil at 6:14 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
There are plenty of devices available to hold a phone while behind used as a web cam.
posted by SemiSalt at 6:58 AM on July 6, 2022
posted by SemiSalt at 6:58 AM on July 6, 2022
I've been pretty happy with Epoccam Pro. Works w windows and Mac to make your iPhone into a web cam. It works w zoom, teams, googlemeetings.
Only rub is when you get a phone call in the middle of a video call.
You might be able to bum an old phone from someone or buy used to avoid that.
I also understand that the next release of MacOS will have this feature.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 8:03 AM on July 6, 2022
Only rub is when you get a phone call in the middle of a video call.
You might be able to bum an old phone from someone or buy used to avoid that.
I also understand that the next release of MacOS will have this feature.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 8:03 AM on July 6, 2022
Response by poster: Hardware notes: I'm on Android ecosystem (but thanks for iPhone info in case it's helpful to anybody else). @mhoye, the dSLR is a Canon Rebel T7i.
Thank you all so much for these great suggestions!
posted by Bardolph at 9:21 AM on July 6, 2022
Thank you all so much for these great suggestions!
posted by Bardolph at 9:21 AM on July 6, 2022
You will get much better quality out of that DSLR, and Canon released a utility to let you use it over USB without an HDMI capture device.
Find out more on Canon's support page
Do still spend a few bucks on some kind of lighting, it helps quite a bit.
posted by bug138 at 10:21 AM on July 6, 2022
Find out more on Canon's support page
Do still spend a few bucks on some kind of lighting, it helps quite a bit.
posted by bug138 at 10:21 AM on July 6, 2022
I'll toss in a plug for The Center Cam. It's a narrower field of view than my MacBook Pro camera, which means it doesn't feel to other people like they're a foot away from my face, with all of the facial distortion from being that close. It's got better color rendition. And the fact that I can put it right near what I'm looking at (I dangle it off a larger screen, and reposition windows as necessary to be close or under it) means that I'm looking people in the eye, which makes them feel like I'm really present.
posted by straw at 11:02 AM on July 6, 2022
posted by straw at 11:02 AM on July 6, 2022
I will take a slightly different tack than some of your other answers here.
I have a pretty standard logitech webcam, and what I did was install OBS Studio. If you're comfortable with a little bit of setup, you can use it to consume the signal from your webcam, and perform operations on the video, such as cropping, correcting brightness, contrast, etc, and then outputting the result through a "virtual webcam" which just appears as a webcam option in your normal meeting/video-calling software or websites.
That plus a bit of a background blur means that my on-camera appearance is as good as it can be with this set of hardware. I would say the quality is plenty good for video streaming/recording without any extra hardware investment, and it's free!
If you want to go further, you can also route your audio through OBS. I use a free product called VB Cable (note: the download link at the top of the page is the free version, the links lower on the page are "donation-ware") to allow me to consume the microphone with OBS, apply noise reduction in OBS, and send the output as a virtual "microphone" that meeting websites/software can use as a microphone source.
There is other software that can do some or all of these things too, but this is what I use, and it's been a very stable and effective setup for me.
Good luck!
posted by Lafe at 12:45 PM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
I have a pretty standard logitech webcam, and what I did was install OBS Studio. If you're comfortable with a little bit of setup, you can use it to consume the signal from your webcam, and perform operations on the video, such as cropping, correcting brightness, contrast, etc, and then outputting the result through a "virtual webcam" which just appears as a webcam option in your normal meeting/video-calling software or websites.
That plus a bit of a background blur means that my on-camera appearance is as good as it can be with this set of hardware. I would say the quality is plenty good for video streaming/recording without any extra hardware investment, and it's free!
If you want to go further, you can also route your audio through OBS. I use a free product called VB Cable (note: the download link at the top of the page is the free version, the links lower on the page are "donation-ware") to allow me to consume the microphone with OBS, apply noise reduction in OBS, and send the output as a virtual "microphone" that meeting websites/software can use as a microphone source.
There is other software that can do some or all of these things too, but this is what I use, and it's been a very stable and effective setup for me.
Good luck!
posted by Lafe at 12:45 PM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
To be clear, what OS are you using that you want to use the camera with? I use the EOS Webcam Utility noted above on Windows for my own professional purposes and it ought to work fine with a T7i. Others I work with use something similar on Mac.
All you need is a USB cable that connects from the camera's side panel to your computer. Follow the instructions and the software should take care of the rest. It'll appear as a webcam to video apps.
Note you'll want a little tripod and potentially a dummy battery (to plug it in so it doesn't run out) if you plan on using the camera as your main webcam for more than an hour or two at a time.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:04 PM on July 6, 2022
All you need is a USB cable that connects from the camera's side panel to your computer. Follow the instructions and the software should take care of the rest. It'll appear as a webcam to video apps.
Note you'll want a little tripod and potentially a dummy battery (to plug it in so it doesn't run out) if you plan on using the camera as your main webcam for more than an hour or two at a time.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:04 PM on July 6, 2022
I had a similar problem; an ancient rev of a Logitech C615 and I hated looking at myself through that webcam.
Very happy with the Razer KIYO.
It comes with a ring-light around the camera and the camera quality is such that I don't actually need it with ambient warm LED light/ natural light.
Don't let the "gamer" designation throw you, it's a fine productivity camera.
Many complaints about the microphone being soft or muddy, but I haven't had any.
I (think, to myself) that I look much less horrible through this than my previous cam.
posted by porpoise at 10:34 PM on July 6, 2022
Very happy with the Razer KIYO.
It comes with a ring-light around the camera and the camera quality is such that I don't actually need it with ambient warm LED light/ natural light.
Don't let the "gamer" designation throw you, it's a fine productivity camera.
Many complaints about the microphone being soft or muddy, but I haven't had any.
I (think, to myself) that I look much less horrible through this than my previous cam.
posted by porpoise at 10:34 PM on July 6, 2022
Webcam prices have dropped a lot. Look into some youtube videos of people using Logitech C920 and see what you think of the quality for about $60-70. That is one of the most popular and commonly used mid-low level ones out there. You can get decent results, especially with lighting. And make sure you are using the Logitech software which improves quality a lot also.
posted by roaring beast at 9:29 PM on July 7, 2022
posted by roaring beast at 9:29 PM on July 7, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by mhoye at 5:10 AM on July 6, 2022