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Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

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Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#91

Post by llampx »

murkt wrote: post #48
lmilcin wrote: post #41

If you are looking here to improve your webcam because you started to do remote work, don't. First try to improve lighting and audio. Any camera will look bad in bad lighting. It is always better to first improve your lighting before you invest in a new camera. Use high CRI lightbulbs and ensure even source color temperature in your room (ie. all lightbulbs should be emitting same color temperature). Audio is also ve…

It seems I needed to include a couple of shots - one is from my laptop webcam, and the other is from my phone. What "bad lighting" is changes very much based on the camera capabilities (lens, sensor, post-processing).

There's even a severe difference in different models by the same manufacturer. Apple for example, puts much better webcams in their iPhones and iPads than in their Macbooks.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#92

Post by [deleted] »

fock wrote: post #38
denimnerd42 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C920 is still only mediocre IMO. It's ok if you sit completely still but it doesn't handle motion at all.

so what, everyone else buys Sony or m4/3 and a capture card. It's not that you need motion in the typical videoconference that much - and even then: what's handling motion about? I don't have a problem with my c900 (or whatever) and the only problem with a very old Quickcam STX seems to be no driver ..

[deleted]

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#93

Post by mschuster91 »

jeswin wrote: post #76
mschuster91 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony's A6000 works perfectly well, but I recommend you also grab a NP-FW50 dummy battery as it will drain the battery even when plugged in via USB over time. If you want better sound, grab the A6600 which can also sport the XLR-K2M microphone adapter. Regarding HDMI capture: the Blackmagic DeckLink card series works just fine in a Thunderbolt case (at work I run a 2x A6000 system + external HDMI input).

> Blackmagic DeckLink And if you wanna save some cash, any $20-25 hdmi to usb capture card will work just fine. It won't give you uncompressed video, but you won't need it for this use case.

I've been bitten in my ass lots of times by these things. Random crashes, overheating, dodgy connectors that don't tolerate even the slightest movement... thanks but no thanks, the cheapest DeckLink clocks in at 150$. Downside is you'll also need a Thunderbolt PCIe case, but eh. It Just Works (tm).

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#94

Post by makomk »

JosephRedfern wrote: post #11

A year ago, you could easily buy a good webcam for very little. The Logitech C920 is, to my eyes, superior to the MacBook Pro webcam, and offered at least semi-decent audio quality. Pre-pandemic, it could sometimes be had for £25 (~$35). Post pandemic, however, webcam prices seem to have at least tripled (if not quadrupled). As I type, the C920 is going for £140. I can understand this as a supply/demand thing, but su…

The Logitech C920 is a design from 9 years ago, with a sensor to match. You're missing out on a lot of sensor improvements over the years that give things like better low light performance - handy when using a camera for video indoors. It's also, unfortunately, close to the best webcam out there. Apple really don't seem to have brought the camera improvements from their iPhone range to their MacBooks, apparently their built-in webcams are as bad as everyone else's.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#96

Post by grenoire »

avian wrote: post #78
pembrook wrote: post #40

The reason you can’t buy a good webcam is the same reason you can’t buy a high quality monitor outside of LG’s unreliable apple collab. The lazy conglomerates who sell these peripherals often don’t actually produce the parts in them. They simply rebrand commodity cameras and IPS panels in a crap plastic housing and slap their logo on it. Then they give the product a hilariously user-hostile product name, like “PQS GR…

> Then they give the product a hilariously user-hostile product name, like “PQS GRT46782-WT” as an extra f-you to the user. That is also a strategy to prevent product comparisons and unbiased reviews. They quickly cycle through product names and sell a certain product no. only in a limited geographical area. Doesn't matter if a consumer org/magazine/someone on reddit/your friend/etc. does a review. The product will b…

The geo-locking of model numbers is one of the vilest practices I've seen. I don't see it going away for any reason, it'll only be possible to combat by intl. legislation... but how do you even legislate that?

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#97

Post by raesene9 »

murkt wrote: post #43
raesene9 wrote: post #36

The article doesn't really go into a lot of depth about which Logitech cameras they looked at. I've got the Brio ( https://www.logitech.com/en-gb/product/brio ) and it seems pretty good to me. If you are looking to use an iPhone camera for streaming/Video conferencing camo ( https://reincubate.com/camo/ ) works well.

> The article doesn't really go into a lot of depth about which Logitech cameras they looked at. All of them. Brio is better, but still has much worse quality than any top smartphone.

Depends what you're looking for I guess. The brio's been fine for me for video conferencing and even the odd conference talk.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#98

Post by jimmies »

> So there is a market gap between so-so webcams for $100-200 and a full-blown setup with a mirrorless camera...

Don't know where you can buy a readymade one. However, if you don't mind DIY, try our free software project showmewebcam. It uses a Pi and its HQ sensor and some software glue to make a USB webcam [1]. You'll have a wide selection of affordable lenses [2] and cases [3] that people cook up for their personal use. It's so much fun experimenting with them for different use cases.

Last time I commented here, there have been criticisms about the quality of the lens that the Pi foundation offer. We have discovered many other decent alternative lenses that help remedy the quality and distortion issue of the stock lenses. An example of a good accumulation of knowledge as we have more users and people paying more attention is the commonlands lens guide [4].

The software is very actively developed and we have a pretty supportive developers community. We try our best to have good software engineering practices so we can maintain this project in the long run. The software is designed to be modularized. It is easy to understand, build, and improve upon. I have a lot of fun building it - in fact I just finished a 5 hours coding session to address comments on the Pull Requests that I started earlier. I hope eventually it's not just another pi project for fun, the firmware has the potential to make this solution more powerful than the best webcam that money can buy, just like how openwrt is for routers.

I still have yet to record a decent demo video to demonstrate the power of the Picam but there is just too many things and too little time to get it done. Oh well...

1. https://github.com/showmewebcam/showmewebcam

2. https://github.com/showmewebcam/showmewebcam/wiki/Lenses

3. https://github.com/showmewebcam/showmewebcam/wiki/Cases

4. https://commonlands.com/blogs/camera-engineering/raspi-video...

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#99

Post by muro »

Some friends use ipads as their webcams, I've switched to a Nest something hub. It's nice to make video calls on a different device, as my laptop doesn't run its fans at crazy speeds and noise. The video and audio quality from the nest hub max whatsizname is great.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#100

Post by diarrhea »

murkt wrote: post #48
lmilcin wrote: post #41

If you are looking here to improve your webcam because you started to do remote work, don't. First try to improve lighting and audio. Any camera will look bad in bad lighting. It is always better to first improve your lighting before you invest in a new camera. Use high CRI lightbulbs and ensure even source color temperature in your room (ie. all lightbulbs should be emitting same color temperature). Audio is also ve…

It seems I needed to include a couple of shots - one is from my laptop webcam, and the other is from my phone. What "bad lighting" is changes very much based on the camera capabilities (lens, sensor, post-processing).

I disagree somewhat. Coming from a photography background, we should distinguish quantity and quality.

Quantity of light you can make up with higher gain (ISO) and higher available dynamic range also helps, as you mentioned.

Quality of light is determined entirely outside the camera, and better gear does not help much if at all. For photography, the quality matters countless times more than quantity, usually. I would argue the same is true for video/webcam.

This is what people don't get, and so hobbyists end up with $5k in gear, taking terrible photos. It's similar to when videographers don't put effort into their sound.

This makes it a question of how and what to light, not how much. The latter would be a matter of adjusting gain in-camera, in Post-Processing, or simply turning existing lighting up. But the former part is the important, and difficult, one.

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