3 ms·

I have the Logitech C920 webcam the post mentions. The white balance truly is all over the place, especially if you don't have great lightning setup. I ended u

I have the Logitech C920 webcam the post mentions. The white balance truly is all over the place, especially if you don't have great lightning setup. I ended up adjusting the image manually with v4l2-ctl (see for example http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man1/v4l2-ctl.1.html http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man1/v4l2-ctl.1.h...) I also pointed my warm white light desk lamp towards the wall behind my desk and bounce a bit of light back on my face off the wall.

ghaff 6y ago
I can adjust the white balance with my Elgato key light and that seems to work pretty well. The Logitech C920 is IMO a nice compromise. It's as high quality as you need for most purposes and it doesn't take up the desk real estate of a dedicated camera. It's also easier to have your eyes closer to the slides you're presenting or the video of the person you're speaking with.
pimlottc 6y ago
I'm glad to see others pointing this out. Compared to the build-in webcam on my MacBook Pro, the C920 is much sharper, but I look like a ghost most of the time. And Logitech's software leaves a lot to be desired; at one point, it was bundled in with their gaming software package and asks for lots of extra permissions to control my computer that I don't need for the webcam. If there is a better thirty-party program out there for macOS, I would love that.
ltratt 6y ago
I also have a C920: it's fairly infamous for the "Smurf effect", where it tends to make everything look unnaturally blue. Setting the "white_balance_temperature" setting manually improves this situation substantially! Depending on your OS, you might have to first set a "white_balance_temperature_auto" to "off" and then set a "white_balance_temperature" in Kelvin. [In OpenBSD, we recently added this ability, but conflated the two controls into one. YMMV will vary by OS!]
mjcohen 6y ago
For my Mac, I find that EpocCam on my iPod Touch (and iPhone) is very good as a webcam, especially in low light. For mounting it, this looks good: SHAWE Phone Holder Bed Gooseneck Mount

ghaff 6y ago

I can adjust the white balance with my Elgato key light and that seems to work pretty well. The Logitech C920 is IMO a nice compromise. It's as high quality as you need for most purposes and it doesn't take up the desk real estate of a dedicated camera. It's also easier to have your eyes closer to the slides you're presenting or the video of the person you're speaking with.

pimlottc 6y ago

I'm glad to see others pointing this out. Compared to the build-in webcam on my MacBook Pro, the C920 is much sharper, but I look like a ghost most of the time. And Logitech's software leaves a lot to be desired; at one point, it was bundled in with their gaming software package and asks for lots of extra permissions to control my computer that I don't need for the webcam. If there is a better thirty-party program out there for macOS, I would love that.

ltratt 6y ago

I also have a C920: it's fairly infamous for the "Smurf effect", where it tends to make everything look unnaturally blue. Setting the "white_balance_temperature" setting manually improves this situation substantially! Depending on your OS, you might have to first set a "white_balance_temperature_auto" to "off" and then set a "white_balance_temperature" in Kelvin. [In OpenBSD, we recently added this ability, but conflated the two controls into one. YMMV will vary by OS!]

mjcohen 6y ago

For my Mac, I find that EpocCam on my iPod Touch (and iPhone) is very good as a webcam, especially in low light. For mounting it, this looks good: SHAWE Phone Holder Bed Gooseneck Mount