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Webcams aren't good enough

reincubate.com

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Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#191

Post by logifail »

bjourne wrote: post #179
logifail wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So yes, all things being equal, better lighting helps $63 on a C920, add one window (typically ships free with your house/apartment) plus access to one truly special light source which although it's 93 million miles away you were lucky enough to get a free lifetime subscription to when you arrived on this planet. Why spent time worrying about what a cell phone camera can achieve in poor or uneven lighting if a bog-…

The point of the article is that even a shitty old cell phone handily beats a "mid-range" C920 webcam. Yes, lighting conditions are important to photography, but, as the author demonstrates, cell phone cameras are better even in those scenarios. Furthermore, if you live in northern latitudes you get very little sunlight during the winter so a "window" is not a sufficient solution.

> Furthermore, if you live in northern latitudes you get very little sunlight during the winter so a "window" is not a sufficient solution

Perhaps I wasn't clear: a North-facing window never gets direct sunlight, but doesn't matter because we're after neutral, even light.

Certainly not "direct light", not even "lots of light".

Just neutral, even light. It's worked for artists for centuries.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#192

Post by layer8 »

kcb wrote: post #2

Webcams are good enough for their purpose which is video conferencing and calls. In the end your video is likely going to be encoded in like 360p low bitrate. I personally prefer not being in razor sharp detail on calls anyway. Anyway this is the one I've been using. https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Webcam-Built-Stereo-Micropho... I like the integrated shutter better than the cover thing for the c920.

> In the end your video is likely going to be encoded in like 360p low bitrate. I personally prefer not being in razor sharp detail on calls anyway.

Good color is kind of important though and usually not affected by bandwidth.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#194

Post by Beltalowda »

rlei wrote: post #171

I'm the cofounder at Lumina - we're building a modern webcam designed to solve some of these problems. There's really been a lack of innovation in the entire home office space, with the webcam being particularly bad. It sucks that a decade-old product (Logitech C920) is still the bestselling product today -- that would be like if Apple stopped releasing new phones after the iPhone 4S (launched 2012), and it remained…

Does Lumina work on Linux? I can't really find anything about it (there is also a Lumina Desktop Environment for Linux it seems), and while it says "Lumina is compatible with Windows and Macintosh machine" this can mean "we don't directly support Linux, but it should work" (like Logitech), or it can mean "we have specialized drivers/software that only work on Windows and macOS".

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#195

Post by ncmncm »

wyager wrote: post #150
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #29

This made me laugh. > Using an iPhone as a webcam is easily the best option without dropping an excess of $1,000 for professional camera gear. Using the iPhone you already own, or a recent hand-me-down, a moderate investment in lighting, and Reincubate Camo, you can get excellent results and none of the frustration and hassle that accompanies standalone webcams. I don't have an iPhone. So if I want to buy one that is…

Don't use a sony A6**; they overheat. Use a fujifilm or an A7 series.

The other guy said literally the opposite. Maybe you two fight it out, and report the outcome?

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#196

Post by yellowapple »

xeromal wrote: post #188
hgomersall wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to compare lumina too, but you don't support Linux so I'll have to accept a crap webcam over a non functioning one.

I can probably count the number of people on linux who will buy this webcam on my two hands.

Maybe you'd need more hands for counting that number if the webcam in question actually worked under Linux?

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#198

Post by IshKebab »

kcb wrote: post #2

Webcams are good enough for their purpose which is video conferencing and calls. In the end your video is likely going to be encoded in like 360p low bitrate. I personally prefer not being in razor sharp detail on calls anyway. Anyway this is the one I've been using. https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Webcam-Built-Stereo-Micropho... I like the integrated shutter better than the cover thing for the c920.

Yeah I kind of agree. We're years away from when most people's videoconferencing quality is close to C920 quality. Audio is much more important. The C920's is pretty crap. You can easily buy better mics, but unfortunately most people just don't care about the quality of their own output.

I think part of the problem is that it's quite difficult to know your audio/video sounds/looks crap to other people. For most users they won't have a clue until someone says "I can't hear you" lots of times.

Zoom doesn't even have a way to test your connection.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#199

Post by thewebcount »

What is going on in the video of the C920 exposure test? It’s not clear if he’s changing lighting, changing camera settings, or letting the driver change some internal settings, but the view out the window is getting less and less overexposed while his face remains exactly as overexposed at each step. It’s like it’s exposing different parts of the frame differently and all poorly. WTF?

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#200

Post by walrus01 »

xeromal wrote: post #188
hgomersall wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to compare lumina too, but you don't support Linux so I'll have to accept a crap webcam over a non functioning one.

I can probably count the number of people on linux who will buy this webcam on my two hands.

webcams on linux with good driver support are not just for use by humans but in a myriad of industrial/embedded applications, for single image acquisition, etc.

don't just think about people using linux desktop PCs in home offices, but all forms of other use of camera systems.

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