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Webcams aren't good enough

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Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#91

Post by jjeaff »

logifail wrote: post #48

There is a reason that for hundreds of years painters and (later) photographers have preferred working in spaces with North-facing windows[0], and that is because it's a simple way of ensuring neutral, even light. My home office is (by design) in a room with one North-facing window. I use a Logitech C920. Many people have told me how good my webcam feed is. I don't think it's that the C920 is particularly brilliant,…

Or, just turning on any bright lights will do wonders. Most people have very dim lighting.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#92

Post by Forgeties79 »

logifail wrote: post #48

There is a reason that for hundreds of years painters and (later) photographers have preferred working in spaces with North-facing windows[0], and that is because it's a simple way of ensuring neutral, even light. My home office is (by design) in a room with one North-facing window. I use a Logitech C920. Many people have told me how good my webcam feed is. I don't think it's that the C920 is particularly brilliant,…

It blows people’s minds how much a few good practice suggestions change their image. I come from a film background and get requests for help by colleagues and friends constantly. I almost always just reposition their camera and move a lamp nearby to use as a key if they have no window, or as a kicker if they do.

It’s really easy to teach yourself this stuff, it’s not magic. Most people just assume their gear is either too cheap or they’re too ignorant to get it. 5-10min of research and 5-10min of implementation will do wonders for most people.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#93

Post by shados »

logifail wrote: post #48

There is a reason that for hundreds of years painters and (later) photographers have preferred working in spaces with North-facing windows[0], and that is because it's a simple way of ensuring neutral, even light. My home office is (by design) in a room with one North-facing window. I use a Logitech C920. Many people have told me how good my webcam feed is. I don't think it's that the C920 is particularly brilliant,…

Also the vast majority of people using these web cams don't have nearly enough lighting. When there isn't enough, the software cranks up the ISO to ridiculous level which gives that distinctive "webcam grain" look thats awful.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#94

Post by QuantumSeed »

geysersam wrote: post #47
throwyawayyyy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to that. I don't want to be in ultra HD in meetings. I mean, I also don't want to look like a character from a 90s CD-ROM game -- but that's a matter of bandwidth, not the camera. In a way, 720p or below is a non-vain version of applying a filter, smoothing imperfections away.

Don't think this is actually true. We stream high definition video regularly nowadays. It's not a question of resolution, but of other qualities of the recording, the way differences in lighting is handled etc. Those imperfections are not smoothed away by compression.

To your point, I've seen some modern webcams accentuate extremely minor facial blemishes to the point where observers actually notice it and call it out, concerned that the person is sick or has had some sort shaving incident. I would think compression would make that even worse.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#95

Post by oxfeed65261 »

bradknowles wrote: post #21

I first saw this article years ago, and I'm glad to see it has been updated with some more modern webcams. I'm also sad to see that the state of the art in this space hasn't changed much for webcams, especially on the Mac. I do have an older iPhone 7 that I could put to use like this, but I'm starting to become convinced that maybe I actually do need to buy a somewhat newer iPhone device with multiple lenses, and use…

As a longtime, happy user of an iPhone 6S (on my third battery, second screen, and second charging port), I am curious as to why you consider the iPhone 7 to be obsolete for personal use. I know that later models have better screens, cameras, processors, etc., but I have a crisp Retina display and all functionality I use seems fine.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#96

Post by Forgeties79 »

navanchauhan wrote: post #12

You can use you phone's camera as a webcam with Reincubate's Camo App. This required a wired connection iirc. You can also use OBS Studio along with a virtual camera plugin to use any device which can output directly to your computer. But most of these solutions do not work on Safari or FaceTime unless you manually modify the app. Now, Apple is going to soon introduce their "It Just Works" solution with the next rele…

Hell with zoom you don’t need OBS. Get a cheap $20 capture card and an HDMI cable, you’re all set.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#97

Post by __turbobrew__ »

post_break wrote: post #42

The logitech C920 can put out incredible video, if you have access to every setting. For some reason logitech puts the training wheels on and doesn't let you adjust every single setting like gain. There was an incredible app called "webcam settings" for mac that let you refine that webcam like putting a dslr into manual mode. I was able to get it so dialed in you thought it was a top of the line webcam. That software…

On linux you can use v4l2-ctl to fine tune the webcam settings (focus, gain, white balance, etc).

The C920 has really poor firmware, none of the auto settings work well. Auto focus is particularly bad.

I wrote a quick script which hard locks all of the settings of my C920 to the optimal values for my office conditions.

The low light performance of the C920 hardware is quite bad, but if you have adequate lighting and manually configure the setting you can get a pretty good setup.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#98

Post by Forgeties79 »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #63
ketzo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just use a decent cam in the laptop I mean, phone cameras will literally always be better than laptop cameras. They're just a lot bigger. Edit: I should clarify this a little. From my understanding, camera quality is pretty overwhelmingly limited by lens quality. Better lenses require a thicker / deeper camera housing, which is hard to stuff into the top lid of a laptop. Phones are "always" (although that might not…

What a curious take. They just need to put bigger cameras in the laptop. There is like 100x more space for such things.

Ehhh it’s not quite that simple. Optics and sensors have requirements that screen builds clash with. You’d need to make them thicker, for starters.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#99

Post by Jcowell »

feet wrote: post #84
nojito wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What the actual fuck are they thinking just use a decent cam in the laptop It will actually almost double the weight of the overall laptop if they added the same camera as they do on iPhone.

Quoted post unavailable.

I think he means in order to fit a camera you need to increase the thickness of the laptops lid. Whether or not this leads to double the weight , idk but there is definitely a weight increase to fit the camera.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#100

Post by hwbehrens »

logifail wrote: post #48

There is a reason that for hundreds of years painters and (later) photographers have preferred working in spaces with North-facing windows[0], and that is because it's a simple way of ensuring neutral, even light. My home office is (by design) in a room with one North-facing window. I use a Logitech C920. Many people have told me how good my webcam feed is. I don't think it's that the C920 is particularly brilliant,…

> I don't think it's that the C920 is particularly brilliant

I used to sit in a cubicle under fluorescent lights, and I often received compliments on my webcam quality when I used a C920e, which I think has the same quality as the C920.

Don't underestimate absolutely horrendous laptop webcams becoming normalized, especially after stream compression.

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