251–260 of 499 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That still leaves the original question of why dedicated cameras aren’t doing this.
there are cameras that do this; there are many UVC USB3 webcams with phone-grade sensors (medium quality).
Why can’t laptops just get smartphone cameras? Is the BOM impact of a phone camera from 2018 really that high?
Because the sauce is not in the camera, but in the software. I recommend the following article, if not even for reading, just to appreciate how much processing magic is going on: https://vas3k.com/blog/computational_photography/
I'm probably not explaining very well. In the end I want to rely on OS & Software as little as possible because things keep breaking (on Linux) for me so if I can just get a single video feed to select as the camera source for Zoom, Teams et. al that'd be great.
Why can’t laptops just get smartphone cameras? Is the BOM impact of a phone camera from 2018 really that high?
not the bom, it's the screen thickness. Most laptops screens are much thinner than a smartphone. That said, i'd gladly have a little camera bump.
For video, I think this is a waste of time and money. Audio is a different story. The quality of your audio has an impact both on the intelligibility of what you're saying and on listener's subconscious evaluations of you. Audio software and hardware is also cheaper and much, much easier to deal with than video--I've had no problems with essentially the same setup across Mac, Linux, and Windows. The cost of entry is…
Is a XLR microphone worth the cost increase - for meetings, not streaming(or youtube creation)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What camera did you end up with that had a narrow FOV?
I can recommend a full-frame Canon RP ($999) with RF 35mm f1.8 lens ($449) as a relatively inexpensive narrow FOV setup. Edited to add: Meant Narrow DOF when writing this, but both are true if you sit close to it!
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.
Does this work with the Teams client on MacOS without having to disable code signing?
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 scr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What camera did you end up with that had a narrow FOV?
I can recommend a full-frame Canon RP ($999) with RF 35mm f1.8 lens ($449) as a relatively inexpensive narrow FOV setup. Edited to add: Meant Narrow DOF when writing this, but both are true if you sit close to it!
My other thought is that the suggested lens can stop down to f1.8, which would give a nice narrow depth of field (DOF) and add a pleasant background blur, but it would also be harder to stay in focus during a call. If the person on camera moves forward or backward very much at all when the lens is at f1.8, they would be pretty blurry. So perhaps they could get away with a lens that just stops down to f2.8 or so, albeit with worse low-light performance (smaller aperture, less light coming through).
But take these comments with a grain of salt. It sounds like you have a setup that works well for you.
For video, I think this is a waste of time and money. Audio is a different story. The quality of your audio has an impact both on the intelligibility of what you're saying and on listener's subconscious evaluations of you. Audio software and hardware is also cheaper and much, much easier to deal with than video--I've had no problems with essentially the same setup across Mac, Linux, and Windows. The cost of entry is…