Considering the iPhone has a good camera, has any one used https://www.elgato.com/en/epoccam ?
Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
151–160 of 794 posts
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#152I've also investigated this quite deeply. As I'm sure most of us know, the main problems with 'webcams', either the built-in ones or USB ones that you perch on top of your monitor, are the lens size, and the CCD/CMOS image sensor size. Manufacturers spouting specs like '4k' are deliberately misleading the public if the sensor and/or the lens aren't also upgraded. The only cost-viable methods to get 'broadcast quality…
> Manufacturers spouting specs like '4k' are deliberately misleading the public if the sensor and/or the lens aren't also upgraded. I vaguely remember reading about a video card that had more RAM than it was able to address.
You may be referring to the GeForce GTX 970. It had reduced bandwidth to parts of its RAM.
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#153The 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…
Take a look at Eizo (pun intended).
* eizo/eizou means "footage" or "image" in Japanese
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#154Sony recently added support for webcam-over-usb to a lot of their cameras, apparently. And they are known for video quality and good lenses. So that’s $700-800 for a very good camera (new) that also works as webcam. https://support.d-imaging.sony.co.jp/app/webcam/en/download/
I know they are getting long in the tooth but I wish Sony would do something with the NEX cameras. Latest firmware release was v1.03 released a year or two after they released the camera. Feels like Sony has completely abandoned them.
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Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#155I don't think it's fair to put high quality sound as a requirement for a webcam.
A webcam sitting 2-3 feet from you is not going to sound good, especially not with a dinky microphone that has to fit in a device that's 3 inches wide.
Even $2,000 cameras have poor sound quality and pretty much everyone who does semi-serious recording (Youtube, etc.) will use an external microphone.
Honestly, the classic Logitech c920 is pretty good and it's $60-90 depending on current demand. You can record at 1080p at 30 fps and as long as you have a decent light source ($20 worth of LED lights) the picture quality is quite good.
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 woul…
I agree that we should distinguish quantity and quality.
If we don't have enough light in a scene, we need to raise ISO for a given camera and that can easily make scene look bad. For other camera with bigger and less noisier sensor, brighter lens there can be enough light and it can look very good. I can imagine that there are cases, where increasing amount of light will only improve picture for a cheap camera.
If the light is plentiful and bad, cheap camera can produce abysmal results with parts of the image completely washed white in one part, and very dark in other parts. Good sensor with high dynamic range will produce much better results. Of course, improving the light will improve both results.
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dell used to have good offerings, but all they seem to push now is the same 27” not-quite-4K 3,840 x 2,160 panels everybody else does. Now even the 22" inch LG ultrafine that used to be 4069 x 2304 is bigger at 24" and a worse 3,840 x 2,160. The only good option for mac is the 27 ultrafine 5k. 27 4k a bad size & resolution for the current computer market. Windows scaling looks like crap, and MacOS has to do more reso…
>Windows scaling looks like crap Huh? I'm using LG's 27 inch 4k and scaling looks good. It can bug and force you to relaunch app but that's not something you encounter often.
I'm using a Dell P2715Q (also 27 inch 4k); it looks fine. But... scaling? The point of having a gigantic 27 inch monitor is that you don't need to scale it. The only problem I do have with the monitor is that it makes me disable scaling on my 15" laptop screen, since there are annoying interactions when you have one screen with scaling active and one without.
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#158The 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…
Tip: try to find out what panel the monitor you are buying has. Then look the panel up in a database like panelook.com. This way you can get the specifications without any marketing bullshit. It also works the other way round. Find a panel that is good enough for your eyes, then see if there's a mass marketed display with that panel. If you are adventurous, you can grab "DIY" or "assembled" monitors with the panels o…
Isn't it so that monitors or laptops under the same model sometimes use different panels?
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
I don't see it going away as there are valid reasons for doing so for small but important market differences.
If you're making some device (for example, washing machine) which has a power cord and a knob for some mode selection with writing on it, then for the exact same internals you need different models where the power cords are different (USA, UK, Germany and Japan each require different plugs) and the writing on the device is printed in different language and with customizations such as Celsius vs Fahrenheit. You can't sell the exact same laptop model in every market because the keyboard layouts are different. Etc.
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dell used to have good offerings, but all they seem to push now is the same 27” not-quite-4K 3,840 x 2,160 panels everybody else does. Now even the 22" inch LG ultrafine that used to be 4069 x 2304 is bigger at 24" and a worse 3,840 x 2,160. The only good option for mac is the 27 ultrafine 5k. 27 4k a bad size & resolution for the current computer market. Windows scaling looks like crap, and MacOS has to do more reso…
> not-quite-4K 3,840 x 2,160 But...that is 4K. It's what 4K is defined as, exactly 2x 1080p resolution in each dimension. > Windows scaling looks like crap I don't understand. 2x each dimension (so 1 pixel in the old resolution is 4 in the new) is, like, the easiest possible scenario when it comes to scaling in software.
While DCI 4K is a standard with 4,096 pixels of width, you’re correct that the HD standard (and therefore what is relevant to the discussion here) has always been UHD 4K and 3840 pixels wide.
DCI is relevant for movie industry professionals only, as these are the dimensions used for projection devices and (potentially) their content.