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Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

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Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#441

Post by KVFinn »

NamTaf wrote: post #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 scr…

>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.

Ohh, shared media watch is still such a mess right now, and it would have been so amazing in the peak of the pandemic. Replying so I can find this in the future.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#442

Post by KVFinn »

mrdonbrown wrote: post #56

I'm surprised no one has mentioned using a teleprompter yet. You can pick one up for around $100 and when combined with a little 7" monitor (another $100) attached to your computer, creates a nice setup for zoom calls where you can look directly at your partner. Also doubles as a great talking head setup for video production.

>I'm surprised no one has mentioned using a teleprompter yet. You can pick one up for around $100 and when combined with a little 7" monitor (another $100) attached to your computer, creates a nice setup for zoom calls where you can look directly at your partner. Also doubles as a great talking head setup for video production.

For anyone else confused about what a teleprompter adds here, it's that the two-way mirror lets you put a webcam 'behind' the virtual reflected screen, so it can be perfectly centered in the screen.

Though this just makes me want to tape or suspend a webcam to the middle of a regular monitor, so it could show actual size human faces.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#443

Post by Pamar »

jephson wrote: post #433
Pamar wrote: post #431

I haven't read the whole thread, so maybe I am just repeating a point someone else made. I draw as a hobby; during the pandemic, lots of people started hosting art posing sessions over Zoom (here is an example of one of my sessions, model was in Mexico - I live in Europe: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb8WpdEAsOk/?utm_source=ig_web_c... ) so I was interested in this article because it looked like something that could m…

> really improbable that anyone else would try to replicate the endeavor. Not so, this week I bought one of the cameras mentioned in the article for the same purpose.

I am glad for you that you can afford this, but I still think it is really too expensive/complicated for the benefits you are supposed to get from it.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#444

Post by almog »

manmal wrote: post #421
almog wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it just after many of the covid restriction were lifted, which resulted in businesses, schools and even churches getting rid of streaming gear on ebay. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but I found quite a few at that were sold around that price (I just checked my ebay account and it was $75). Just checked and the price for new one where I live (Tel Aviv) is around $450, so I guess I was lucky, at least in…

I actually think it’s an ideal device even for more recent computers, because it reduces latency to a minimum!

In case you're in the market for one, I just checked ebay again and there are quite a few of it for ~$75.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#445

Post by bzzzt »

phantomread wrote: post #259
randerson wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Amateur photographer looking to learn more here. My initial impression is that a 35mm focal length on a full-frame/35mm film equivalent sensor would have a relatively _wide_ field of view (FOV). Or do I have that backwards? 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 fo…

> 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.

The mirrorless EOS camera's (R series) have autofocus with face tracking which works quite well. At f1.8 you get 8cm depth of field at 1m distance so you'd have to stop down the aperture to about f4 if you want your whole head to appear sharp on video.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#446

Post by cntrl »

bradlys wrote: post #305

I hate to say this but it’s almost entirely not worth it. The image quality only shows up here because they’re uploading images that they took from the camera locally. Trying doing it with Zoom. The compression is absolutely terrible. You’re gonna find that you spent a lot of time and money only to see a decent quality image on your side . Everyone else is gonna see the same muddy mess that they always saw. The image…

I agree with your points of it not being worth it for most people and fixing lighting is a big factor -- however, even on zoom calls, using a proper camera / lens combo is very much noticeable compared to a regular webcam, regardless of the compression.

I've run a a6500/sigma 30 f/1.4 combo for a couple of months just for fun when COVID started and everyone noticed the quality difference. I ditched it in the end because it was way less convenient then to have a single usb webcam and nobody gives a shit about how you look.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#447

Post by supermatt »

formerly_proven wrote: post #85
supermatt wrote: post #48

Having done exactly this, my main annoyance is that you have to manually power on and off the camera, which means losing whatever zoom and settings you had configured.

There are proper cameras which don't remember settings across power cycles and battery swaps? Curious. Never heard of that before, that's a complete deal-breaker for actually, y'know', using a camera to me. Perhaps the SRAM battery/capacitor in yours is just dead? (Then again, not exactly sure how that happens, I've used 15+ year old Nikon DSLRs and they had no trouble with Alzheimers)

The very first one in the list of recommendations - the a6X00 series.

Theres also the annoyance of actually powering the thing on and off in the first place, which must be near universal. As it is, I use a USB "fake-battery" and just disable that. But its still something I have to manually do instead of the OS just "activating" it.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#449

Post by Hamcha »

alx__ wrote: post #356
Hamcha wrote: post #75

Only tangentially related but if you already have a popular Logitech webcam (like the C920) chances are you can find a kit to mount C/CS/D-mount lenses on it, like with this one: https://www.kurokesu.com/shop/C920_REWORK_KIT2 C/CS/D mounts are for CCTV camera so you can find new and used lens for cheap. They will not fix a cheap/bad sensor, but they will definitely get you extra flexibility in what kind of framing/sh…

If I understand that correctly, it's a mount to allow you to use a normal camera lens? That are a specific screw-thread type? Similar to how you can get mounts for phones to improve the shot options?

Yes, but unlike screw-on cameras, the process here takes out the original lens, so you expose the bare sensor to whatever glass you will add later on.

C/CS/D mount are screw-on, they are also completely manual, so you lose software control over focus and other things, and you need to rotate rings in the lens itself to adjust.

Re: Using a "proper" camera as a webcam

#450

Post by JayMickey »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #137

If you go this route, please make sure your system is robust and ready to go before meetings. We had to ask one employee to go back to his reliable built-in webcam because every other meeting started with 2 minutes of him getting his camera turned on, messing with audio inputs, getting his microphone boom in place, and fighting other quirks. He also had a tendency to drop out of long meetings when his camera overheat…

Are you mandating video in meetings? Why would he need to drop when he can just turn off the camera? This seems more like a human problem than a technology problem.
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