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Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

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Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#151
A compromise for when you want a high quality webcam without spending money or dealing with the downsides of using an "real" camera is to use your phone. A 3 year old iphone/samsung will have a built in camera that is better than any webcam you could find under 150$. When you are pairing it with a PC, you can use the back camera instead of the front facing one.

They either work through OBS or a dedicated app that you have to start on your pc. I paid for an app (droidcam, 15$ for the "premium" HD version and free for SD+watermark irrc) because I was in a hurry but I know there are good free alternative if you have some time to spend trying them.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#152
post #114
post #8

I'll put Reincubate Camo here as an option too - turns your iPhone in to a webcam. I was so impressed I bought a used iPhone to use solely as a webcam; the whole setup was cheaper than the Logitech C920 he mentions. The picture quality is great.

what stand/mount do you use and where is it on your setup? (right now I have crappy logitech hanging on to top of monitor)

I use a flat piece of cardboard, folded with slots cut for the phone on top, and the monitor on bottom.

https://imgur.com/a/InImQFo

I just switched from an old apple cinema display to a modern monitor with small bezels, so I need to cut a new one to stop it from blocking the top of my screen.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#153
post #143

I'd love to see stats on how many people actually still use webcams for online meetings. I rarely do, and I don't care if anyone else turns theirs on. Watching someone act like they aren't hyper-aware of what they look like on camera adds very little value to the conversation. Unless you're in sales, trying to make a good impression, or some kind of introductory meeting, who cares?

It's nice to see your colleagues and it adds an extra dimension to meetings.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#154
post #114
post #8

I'll put Reincubate Camo here as an option too - turns your iPhone in to a webcam. I was so impressed I bought a used iPhone to use solely as a webcam; the whole setup was cheaper than the Logitech C920 he mentions. The picture quality is great.

what stand/mount do you use and where is it on your setup? (right now I have crappy logitech hanging on to top of monitor)

I've got a lego stand built from a few bricks holding an iPhone 7 in landscape above my screen. The lens is maybe 18mm above the top of the display pixels.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#155
post #8

I'll put Reincubate Camo here as an option too - turns your iPhone in to a webcam. I was so impressed I bought a used iPhone to use solely as a webcam; the whole setup was cheaper than the Logitech C920 he mentions. The picture quality is great.

camo is great. I was doing what the OP outlines at the beginning of the pandemic with an a6000 and a $10 ebay hdmi capture card. It looked 10% better than camo for 100% more effort.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#157
I use a Sony A6000 with an Elgato CamLink 4K USB adapter. Works great in Windows and Pop_OS 22.04. Slack, Discord, etc all work and I didn't have to fiddle with any configuration since the CamLink shows up as a generic webcam.

I set up howdy (facial recognition login) in Pop_OS and was pleasantly surprised at how relatively simple it was to get working.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#158
post #134

I have an alternative approach that I discovered recently while building a microscope with a webcam driven by linux. Nearly all modern cheap webcams are UVC-compatible and they work with linux. Different models expose different functionalities, but I ended up with this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R489K8L It does 1600x1200 25FPS YUYV (as well as a wide range of other resolutions and FPS) uses the C/CS-mount lens sta…

> I have an alternative approach that I discovered recently while building a microscope with a webcam driven by linux.

Do you have a web page somewhere describing your linux webcam microscope?

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#159
post #42

One thing that I’ve been trying to educate my colleagues about (including the A/V folks!) is that one can bypass the need to fiddle with drivers by using a generic hardware HDMI -> USB video conversion stick utilizing the mirrorless/DSLR’s HDMI output. It’ll mount as a generic video input that Zoom/Teams/OBS can use. You can find these for $40-$100 and it allows one to switch out hardware brands at will without insta…

Ditto. I'm currently using an old Nikon D5100 with a generic HMDI->USB input stick ($15), a generic USB-->battery adaptor ($35) and a custom firmware (to remove borders and menus) from https://nikonhacker.com/

The body is old enough to not car about voiding warranties by using a generic battery adaptor and custom firmware.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#160
Protip: if your goal is to use your smartphone as a webcam, check out this: https://vdo.ninja

Written by some guy named Steve, it’s an incredible piece of web software that uses WebRTC to stream phone audio and video as an OBS input. OBS then features a virtual webcam capability to take that stream and make it a webcam. I can then also use OBS to do whatever processing I want, e.g. making my webcam also contain a screen share or whatever else.

It’s trivial to then load up multiple instances for multi-angle scenes in OBS, then cut between the two. For example, you could have one ‘face’ camera and one ‘page’ camera showing paper on your desk and make a 2nd scene with the ‘page’ camera as the primary and a small PIP view of your face.

It goes much farther than just being an input for OBS, though. For example, it can create video chatrooms of multiple participants with URL parameter configuration and without touching OBS (indeed that’s now one of its primary use cases).

I use it to stream applications/webpages with my partner when we’re apart so we can watch a movie together by creating a high res vid/stereo audio input with no noise cancelling as the movie, then have her and I connect as lower quality, mono+noise cancelling participants. Each of us receives the video and audio of the movie, but only the audio of each other.

There’s heaps of parameters to control video and audio quality, buffering, etc. - just about anything you need.

I stumbled across it when I was trying to get my iPhone to be a webcam early on in the pandemic. There’s multiple apps for that purpose - many paid - but this was so easy and worked so well that it blew them out of the water from a capability perspective.

I know I sound like a shill but honestly I’m just a huge fanboy. It’s one of those web apps that does a job really bloody well, with heaps of flexibility and extensibility. I’m genuinely impressed with it and all the hard work Steve’s clearly put in.

The docs explain a lot of its capability: https://docs.vdo.ninja/

Flick through the how it works and use cases pages, they’ll explain it far better than me.

Guides that show sown of the advanced capability: https://docs.vdo.ninja/guides

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