I'm quite fond of a raspberry pi hd camera and showmewebcam. The problem I've got is that the only lenses I've got to hand mean that I need to mount the camera about a metre behind the monitor, which is really annoying. Definitely need a wider angle lens.
Webcams aren't good enough
321–330 of 610 posts
Re: Webcams aren't good enough
#322You can still get quite an improvement by tweaking settings.
I followed this[1] video tutorial. I was surprised to see especially how much of a difference white-balancing and using a custom LUT does.
Re: Webcams aren't good enough
#323This is something i've struggled with for a while, working remotely for years now, and not wanting to be depersoned by my team never seeing my face.
I tried a logi 920, which i thought was pricey for a webcam, but the image quality is terrible. And every time it starts up, it runs in 60hz anti-flicker mode which flickers like crazy here in australia where we run 50hz power, so i have to start their awful software to change the setting.
Eventually I returned it and got a canon m50. Image quality is good now. I saw some people on the internet saying it could be powered through the usb connection but that turned out to be false, so i have to change the battery every few days which is frustrating. I know you can get a pass-thru 'battery' that connects to a mains adapter, ive yet to try that. Also frustrating is having to reach up and turn it on before a meeting and off at the end.
Next macOS has the feature to use an old iphone as a camera. If this works seamlessly (eg i can mount the phone behind my monitor and it charges itself and turns on and off automatically) it'll be even better.
Re: Webcams aren't good enough
#324I had a Logitech C920 that died a couple years ago and when I went to find a better replacement I ended up buying a... Logitech C920. I couldn't find anything that seemed significantly better that wasn't a lot more money. I regret the purchase, but I'm glad I didn't just spend 3 times as much on a still-not-that-great webcam. I was thinking of finding a second-hand digital camera on eBay, but maybe instead I'll see i…
Get a cheap used android phone and use the back camera as a webcam. Many times better than any webcam that doesn't cost a fortune.
Right, but then you can't share your screen, and you can't see the call participants because the android screen is facing away from you.
Re: Webcams aren't good enough
#325Earlier 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-…
$63 on a C920 Damn that's cheap, where's that price from?
They're $59.99 on Amazon right now.
Re: Webcams aren't good enough
#326I'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…
Sad to see such an imperfect monitor mount type on a webcam that tries to be better. For better eye contact, lens should be as low as possible to be as closer to where you are looking as possible. This one doesn't seem to even try.
Re: Webcams aren't good enough
#327I'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…
Thank you for focusing into this space.
Is there a reason why the lumina webcams only focus on going up to 30/40 fps and not 4k/60fps? Are there plans to improve that aspect?
Re: Webcams aren't good enough
#328I having been successfully using the Anker PowerConf 300 webcam. Using the AnkerWork software on my M1 mac, I find it has excellent autofocus, auto exposure, and zoom and pan capabilities. The cost is $130, but it is often on sale at $100.
I have used it with iGlasses, but that has tended to crash after about an hour. So I use AnkerWork though it is less convenient.
Re: Webcams aren't good enough
#329I'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…
What sucks most is that Logitech, which used to be a proud name (back when "Feels good / Feels better") has gone totally to shit. Even their mice are designed to fail in a year. (Spill on the desk, the mouse that only got damp on the bottom is dead, dead, dead. That can't be accidental.) A full article on what went wrong at Logitech corporate could be enlightening, if not helpful.
Their mice still have the same terrible button that they had 17 years ago when I bought an original MX 518 as far as I can tell. Ive fixed the button so many times on every mouse from them since them. I even made the mistake of buying the re-released mx-518 a year ago thinking that since they put this new fancy sensor in maybe they fixed the button finally. It took 4 months for me to get a double click problem from it again that required me to open it up and fix that damn microswitch. I don't know what mouse ill get next but ive completely given up on logitech.
Re: Webcams aren't good enough
#330Webcams don't have to be good because people have low expectations.
People with high expectations use DSLRs as webcams.