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Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

• foobarbecue 2y ago
  Is chdk still a thing?
• DLoupe 2y ago
  Why $6,2999 when the article says he payed around $900?
  • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
    He likely bought an old model second-hand :) Edit: The camera he uses is a 2019 pocket camera. The 6299 must be another model that has the same restrictions.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • phony-account 2y ago
    > Why $6,2999 when the article says he payed around $900? In the fifth paragraph: “Admittedly, it did not cost me the $6300 from the article's title, much closer to $900. Nonetheless, everything I'm describing translates to every other Canon camera model!”
  • gunian 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • _dabs 2y ago
      What tha hell
  • thatBilly 2y ago
    He discovered this information about his $900 camera but has found that it also applies to other models, likely the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III.
  • KomoD 2y ago
    Because it gets more clicks.
• rashidae 2y ago
  Today I had trouble using OBS Software with my suite of old MacBooks, IPhones and iPads… I thought keeping them would be useful
• brian-armstrong 2y ago
  Yikes. Searching around a bit, it seems people frequently use an Elgato capture card or similar to interface with OBS
• ragazzina 2y ago
  5$ to unblock such a feature is already infuriating. But when you read the article, it explains it’s 5$ PER MONTH.
  • GuB-42 2y ago
    In fact, the problem is that you have to buy a subscription, with all the implications in terms of loss of control, privacy, security, etc... $5 on a $6299 camera is nothing, just pay for it, petty but not really infuriating. Even at $500 I would simply pay should I need it. If I had reasons to buy a $6299 camera, it probably means a budget in the tens of thousands, for lenses, lighting, accessories, etc... $500 is peanuts by comparison. But I certainly wouldn't want my very expensive setup to fail just because some server is down.
• doix 2y ago
  > However, Canon is a hardware company, not a software company, That probably makes it pretty easy to reverse engineer their software to bypass the restrictions.
  • resource_waste 2y ago
    There are things we could do with our time... I suppose I'm glad some people find time to do this.
  • ElectRabbit 2y ago
    CHDK back then had quiet a few people from Canon helping - as far as I remember the floor gossip.
  • HenryBemis 2y ago
    > However, Canon is a hardware company, not a software company, Canon is a company that is in the business of making profit (not just software or just hardware). If they realize that they can charge you $1 for every time you chew gum while taking photos, and people will actually pay for that privilege $1-per-chewing-gum-session (disclaimer: chewing gum not provided) they would charge you! Remember BMW and heating in the UK (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62142208 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62142208)?? Getting paid $6k for a camera once is good. Getting paid another $50 a year for doing nothing is even better. I assume the great brain who came with the idea is: "we got 10 million cameras out there, if 0.5% of those camera owners pay $50 pa, then that's 10m x 0.5% x $50 = $2.5m pa. If I could get a 100k bonus for bringing $2.5m gross to my company I would also suggest this idea.
    • vegadw 2y ago
      Yunno, I wouldn't. Even for 100k on the table. I wouldn't suggest it. I have bills to pay, student loan debt, etc. but for one, I wouldn't want to suggest something that would have long term negative brand impact, and two, but more importantly, I wouldn't want to suggest developing something that if I were to use would piss me off. Make the world you want to see. Engineers share in the responsibility for things like this existing.
• tobyhinloopen 2y ago
  Canon truly is the HP of cameras. Good thing there's Sony and Nikon.
  • franga2000 2y ago
    The latest firmware update for the Sony A7S III has introduced unlockable licenses and a website where you can buy them. The first one (for DCI 4K) is free, but it looks like they'll be chraging for unlocking more "professional" firmware features in the future.
    • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
      Hah I am aware. There's a lot of shit in Sony camp, but Canon is a whole other level. Nikon seems to be the "good guy" these days.
    • eurekin 2y ago
      I'm not sure this is the case, but to play devils advocate - Sony themselves might have to license it from a third party
      • davidgerard 2y ago
        There is no reason to bend over backwards to make up excuses for bad behaviour.
        • eurekin 2y ago
          It's just experience from a video monitoring project we made for a Telco operator - we had to pay up quite a few JPEG related tech, just to get a certification. Even despite that tech being free. Historically video related field was one of the most patent and license encumbered. That's why AV1 exists.
    • nicbou 2y ago
      Yep. This is a sign that the meetings have already happened, and that the course has already been set. The idea was already sold, has picked some momentum, and possibly defines a few people's bonuses.
• xmprt 2y ago
  I wonder when we'll reach a tipping point for the subscription hell that the world is moving towards. On the other hand, with the amount of consolidation and difficulty competing (especially with Lina Khan out) I'm not sure if that will ever happen.
  • InDubioProRubio 2y ago
    Im still waiting for mass-piracy where large parts of the population walk out on the subscription systems leaving the vendors to starve.
  • mrweasel 2y ago
    At some point I feel like it just has to collapse. The thing I don't really understand is subscriptions like the one in the article, how many of those types of subscriptions are effectively dead, in the sense that yes the customer keeps paying, but aren't actually using the "service" anymore.
    • VBprogrammer 2y ago
      The gym revenue model. The indie / startup space has been so all in on subscription revenue that I guess it's not a huge surprise that the big companies eventually tried to get in on the act.
  • Terr_ 2y ago
    I tend to think of insufficient competition as a root cause.
    • abecedarius 2y ago
      And behind that at least in part is the tangle of bad laws, esp. in IP.
• veltas 2y ago
  And this is probably because Canon corporate won't justify a budget for developing this software unless they expect separate revenue for it, even though it's clearly just value-add to the (already very expensive) hardware.
  • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
    Bit of a weird argument considering you can use other brand cameras as webcams without any third party software. At least, all my Sony cameras can just be plugged in using USB and it works immediately. No drivers required.
    • franga2000 2y ago
      Are you sure? The article talks about using it as a webcam and none of the Sony gear I've used supports that (A6500, A7 I/RI/II/SII/III/RIII/SIII). They did make the "Imaging Edge Webcam" program, I think some time during the pandemic, but AFAIK it's just a PTP preview to webcam driver, so the quality is pretty terrible and you can do that with OBS+gphoto2.
      • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
        A7RV + A6700 here. If you plug in a USB cable, it shows the usual "usb selection screen", but it includes a "USB streaming" option. It works immediately, flawlessly, on windows and macOS. For remote shooting, there's still the "PC remote" option. My older Sony cameras (A6300 is my newest "old" Sony camera) don't have the feature (unless you use that terrible software you mentioned) Im surprised to read that even the reasonably modern A7SIII doesn't support it. It must be one of the last models without USB streaming support.
        • josephg 2y ago
          Fellow Sony a7iv owner here. I can confirm this works on my camera too. For older cameras, probably the easiest way to do it (if you don't want to install anything) is to pick up a ~$20 usb HDMI capture card from amazon. Connect the HDMI output on the camera to the capture card. And then set your camera up to output a "clean" video source via the HDMI port. As I understand it, modern capture cards work without drivers on every OS, just like the modern sony cameras do.
• vishnugupta 2y ago
  I guess someone higher up said “well, someone who has forked out over $6k won’t even blink for an additional $5”
• franga2000 2y ago
  I'm not sure since I don't have any Canon gear, but it's very likely that the app just uses the PTP protocol, which is an old but stil common standard. The main ioen source implementation is libgphoto2 and there's an OBS Studio plugin to use it as a camera source, after which you can use its built-in virtual webcam mode to use it as a webcam.
  • looofooo0 2y ago
    Canon G5 X mark 2 does not seem to be supported by gphoto: http://www.gphoto.org/proj/libgphoto2/support.php http://www.gphoto.org/proj/libgphoto2/support.php
    • ChrisMLane 2y ago
      Worth a try compiling a custom version after adding to https://github.com/knro/libgphoto2/blob/master/camlibs/canon/canon.c https://github.com/knro/libgphoto2/blob/master/camlibs/canon... Hopefully it's as easy as that. I'm able to pipe gphoto2 frames to a pipewire sink or v4l2 device and it works great for making my Canon EOS 250D into a webcam.
  • formerly_proven 2y ago
    Newer Nikon and apparently also some Sony cameras simply support USB UVC ("the webcam protocol"), which makes this pure plug and play, but apparently Canon doesn't. For older cameras there's a Nikon webcam utility or something like that, which does exactly what you suggest: grab preview frames via PTP and stuff them into a video source. Or you get an HDMI/USB dongle for 10$.
    • frankchn 2y ago
      Recent Canons support UVC as well (specifically the R1, R5 Mark II, R6 Mark II, R8, and R50).
• eurekin 2y ago
  Right there with the infamous $18 BMW heated seats subscription
  • danw1979 2y ago
    The heated steering wheel software unlock on my X1 is a more reasonably priced £200.
• bambax 2y ago
  Not all companies. The DJI Action camera has a built-in webcam mode that you can select whenever you plug it in via USB, and it just works.
  • bilinguliar 2y ago
    DJI is a potential backdoor.
    • 4ggr0 2y ago
      other cameras aren't?
  • Rodmine 2y ago
    Reasons like this is why the Japanese companies are eating sh*t and are VERY interested in pushing for a US-China war just like the western companies. Everything coming out of China is way more customer friendly, usually way cheaper and getting better and better to a point that they are surpassing everything else that exists. If DJI releases a full-frame mirrorless camera with L-mount (which they are going to), Canon, Nikon, Fuji and all these companies with firmware from the 90s will die and I am not going to miss them. They have made absolutely no effort to provide any value and a whole lot of tacit collusion is going on. They still sell you SD cards instead of including an SSD which would be MUCH cheaper and faster. Same with battery technology. Compatibility, apps, software... everything.
    • strogonoff 2y ago
      Regarding products from China being cheaper: remember that Japanese, Korean, and Western companies are the ones mostly innovating and absorbing the R&D costs. Remember how modern OLEDs were made feasible basically by LG and Samsung? Having stolen that IP[0][1][2], without any R&D costs but with dirt cheap manufacturing due to direct and indirect subsidies like relatively almost nonexistent labour protection laws, PRC companies could of course immediately flood the market with cheaper alternatives. You can choose your suppliers by other measures than merely price. Arguably, you should if the market you are particupating in is not free and fair in this way. Personally, as a happy owner of a Japanese-made under-$2k camera that works perfectly well for all purposes and even has official CAD files published for accessory 3D printing enthusiasts, I see no reason to switch to a Chinese brand (well, also there is no product that beats it on both specs and price, but even if there was I would think twice). People tend to over-generalize, but reality is not as simple as “all manufacturers from %country1% are better because X and all manufacturers from %country2% suffer from issue Y”. [0] https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.amp.asp?newsIdx=113957 https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.amp.asp?newsIdx=113... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/south-korea-indicts-group-for-leaking-samsung-display-tech-to-chinese-firm-idUSKCN1NY17H/ https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/south-korea-indic... [2] https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-07-19/business/tech/Former-Samsung-engineer-sent-to-prison-for-leaking-OLED-tech-to-China/2094354 https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-07-19/busines...
• jcass8695 2y ago
  Enshitification, incarnate.
• alibarber 2y ago
  I also discovered that I couldn't use my Canon SLR to record more than 30 minutes of video continuously. The problem however wasn't Canon, but that I lived in a region (EU) that would have imposed a customs tariff on cameras that could do that, but by keeping it under that, the camera would be classed as a 'stills' camera and so was therefore exempt. Admittedly this is different from the case in the article - but it would appear that owning something that could physically do what you want it to is only half the battle for numerous reasons, and in this case it would have been my government demanding extra money to 'unlock' this functionality.
  • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
    It would likely overheat anyway hah. Old Sony cameras have the same restrictions.
    • sam_lowry_ 2y ago
      No, this is not the reason. If the camera records video for more than 30min, then it is a video camera, see the question answered here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34640107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34640107 In short, there is no good reason anymore, but originally this was because of EU import tarifs.
      • the-grump 2y ago
        GP didn’t claim that’s not the reason. They’re making a joke that if the camera kept recording past 30min, it would overheat. It’s a joke.
        • sam_lowry_ 2y ago
          It's not a joke, older DSLR cameras would often overheat when recording continuously. My good old Canon 6D would overheat once in a while when used as a webcam with v4l2loopback.
          • 2y ago
• mrtksn 2y ago
  It's just a business model like segmentation IMHO. BMWs or Tesla's having the hardware but require a payment for enabling it or CPU manufacturers disabling certain features to sell them at a lower price. IIRC the idea is that to let people pay what they can so you can have larger profits when allowing lower price points. In this case it appears to directly charge for a service(a software that needs to be created and maintained) that you may choose not to have. I don't have problem with these practices at all as long as they don't try to prevent it you from running your hardware through alternative means. If the camera police isn't trying to get you for writing your own software to avoid paying Canon 5$ a month, its all good.
  • regularfry 2y ago
    With CPU manufacturers it at least makes sense for them to have a market for partially faulty chips. That's not what's going on here.
    • mrtksn 2y ago
      They don't just sell the defective one for cheap though, they have all kinds of tricks and the ratios fit the market.
• martinbaun 2y ago
  Great article, yeah it is quite sad with these things. Louis Rossman talked extensively on these issues. By the way, your images go to a weird url for me, maybe it is because it is Brave browser. For example https://romanzipp.com/blog/[%7B%22id%22:%22assets::blog//no-you-cant-use-you-900-canon-camera-as-a-webcam//canon-500.png%22,%22title%22:%22canon-500.png%22,%22path%22:%22blog//no-you-cant-use-you-900-canon-camera-as-a-webcam//canon-500.png%22,%22filename%22:%22canon-500%22,%22basename%22:%22canon-500.png%22,%22extension%22:%22png%22,%22is_asset%22:true,%22is_audio%22:false,%22is_previewable%22:false,%22is_image%22:true,%22is_svg%22:false,%22is_video%22:false,%22blueprint%22:%7B%22title%22:%22Asset%22,%22handle%22:%22assets%22%7D,%22edit_url%22:%22https:////romanzipp.com//cp//assets//browse//assets//blog//no-you-cant-use-you-900-canon-camera-as-a-webcam//canon-500.png//edit%22,%22container%22:%7B%22id%22:%22assets%22,%22title%22:%22Assets%22,%22handle%22:%22assets%22,%22disk%22:%22assets%22,%22blueprint%22:%7B%22title%22:%22Asset%22,%22handle%22:%22assets%22%7D,%22search_index%22:null,%22api_url%22:null%7D,%22folder%22:%22blog//no-you-cant-use-you-900-canon-camera-as-a-webcam%22,%22url%22:%22https:////cdn-a.romanzipp.com//blog//no-you-cant-use-you-900-canon-camera-as-a-webcam//canon-500.png%22,%22permalink%22:%22https:////cdn-a.romanzipp.com//blog//no-you-cant-use-you-900-canon-camera-as-a-webcam//canon-500.png%22,%22api_url%22:null,%22size%22:%22220.28%20KB%22,%22size_bytes%22:225571,%22size_kilobytes%22:220.28,%22size_megabytes%22:0.22,%22size_gigabytes%22:0,%22size_b%22:225571,%22size_kb%22:220.28,%22size_mb%22:0.22,%22size_gb%22:0,%22last_modified%22:%222025-01-17T08:04:20.000000Z%22,%22last_modified_timestamp%22:1737101060,%22last_modified_instance%22:%222025-01-17T08:04:20.000000Z%22,%22focus%22:%2250-50-1%22,%22has_focus%22:false,%22focus_css%22:%2250%%2050%%22,%22height%22:538,%22width%22:1411,%22orientation%22:%22landscape%22,%22ratio%22:2.6226765799256504,%22mime_type%22:%22image//png%22,%22duration%22:null,%22duration_seconds%22:null,%22duration_minutes%22:null,%22duration_sec%22:null,%22duration_min%22:null,%22playtime%22:%2208:52%22,%22alt%22:null%7D] https://romanzipp.com/blog/[%7B%22id%22:%22assets::blog//no-...
  • romanzipp 2y ago
    Yep, I'm on it. Thanks!!
• omegacharlie 2y ago
  > Companies squeezing every last penny out out their customers is no news. And Canon is no stranger. In relation to the rent-seeking behavior of Canon they allegedly nudged a certain open-source camera firmware project not to support some of their most high-end cameras. But with Canon losing interest in DSLRs I hope the situation changes.
• jjcob 2y ago
  In case you are considering Nikon as an alternative, their Webcam Utility might be free, but it doesn't work on the latest version of macOS. There are 3rd party utilities (paid), but I had trouble with autofocus when I tried them. I wish camera manufacturers put half as much effort into usability as smartphone companies. Why does a camera need drivers to be recognized as a webcam at all? Why doesn't my 2000€ camera come with GPS and LTE built in? Why is the software still as crappy as in the 90ies?
  • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
    Modern Sony cameras can be used as webcam without any software. Just plug in, select usb streaming, and done.
    • matwood 2y ago
      Sonys are some of the better cameras for software, but that's a low bar. I love my Nikons for picture taking though.
      • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
        Nikon has been killing it lately. Z8, Z9, Z6iii, lots of cool lenses! If you're in the market for a full frame body and "the holy trinity" (16-35, 24-70, 70-200 F/2.8), you can't go wrong with any of the major 3. They're all very competitive. (but I would go with the Sony because I like their designs the most, Nikon would be my 2nd choice) Nikon users are missing out on a 16-35 2.8 though, but I'm sure Nikon is working on it.
        • matwood 2y ago
          I've only ever used Nikon starting with a D40 ~20 years ago. I regularly still use my D7100, but primarily use my Z5. The only time I'm ever envious of another camera system is when connection options like this come up. But then I go out and take pictures and I'm reminded why I'm probably Nikon for life :)
  • 2y ago
• delta_p_delta_x 2y ago
  Is there a reason OP can't get themselves a $50 USB capture card and a $20 HDMI cable, and use OBS to capture the feed from the HDMI-out in the camera? Most decent capture cards also expose themselves as cameras to almost all applications. This is my setup, and it works perfectly. Nikon D7500 as a webcam. More professional setups use Atomos monitors with built-in NVMe drives mounted directly to the camera. I generally find the camera manufacturers' in-house programs absolutely terrible. Nikon's webcam utility is free[1], but has significant limitations over the capture card setup. Likewise for Sony. Both have considerable resolution and framerate limits, and I'd rather feed a 4K 60 FPS stream into my meeting program and let it handle the compression than have an XGA 1024×768 15 FPS output from the camera. [1]: https://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/products/548/Webcam_Utility.html https://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/products/548/Webca...
  • timewizard 2y ago
    Sure. I can do anything. It's the principle of the thing.
    • brushfoot 2y ago
      The principle is to use the right tool for the job. USB can do just about anything. Video out is one possibility. But HDMI can already do that. It doesn't make sense to expect the manufacturer to provide a free app to make USB do something you can already do over HDMI, and for which HDMI is intended. This article is rage bait where there's no real cause for outrage. But it's adjacent enough to "right to repair" and "subscription fatigue" that it sounds outrageous.
      • tjoff 2y ago
        The right too for the job most certainly is not HDMI. The video feed should (depending on usecase, sure) be compressed on the device and sent over USB. Sending uncompressed video just to be badly compressed in a capture device is most definitely not the right tool for the job.
• bilinguliar 2y ago
  Talking about solutions: Camlink. I use it with a very outdated camera for my online meetings. Works great and gave new life to a camera that I would throw away otherwise.
• stuaxo 2y ago
  The Louis Rossman video on this, which hasn't been made yet - is already playing in my head.
  • tomw1808 2y ago
    Now he already has 2 views on a video he didn't make yet.
    • deskr 2y ago
      This is quickly becoming he most popular video. I'm also viewing the follow up video in my head.
      • sitkack 2y ago
        I have only watch the first 1/3 of it and sent it to three friends. It is that good.
        • humptybumpty 2y ago
          In the EU timezone we’re always late to the party. This video has trended at the top of my home feed and all the good jokes and comments have been made. All I can do is throw my upvotes in to the sea of tens of thousands.
  • em-bee 2y ago
    here it is: https://youtu.be/xYLMZuKWLfE https://youtu.be/xYLMZuKWLfE
• throw738484848 2y ago
  > I've tried this at first in 2024 with macOS 14, which did not work. Why not blame Apple for not providing drivers? It is pretty normal in Linux to check hardware compatibility. You mainly buy hardware with good software support. Apple does not support this camera, so do not buy it!
• gunian 2y ago
  The question I have is why not make interoperability mandatory so both Apple and Canon have to make products that work with eachother instead of weird useless arbitrary rules? It's like people love the horrible experience lol rather trauma than education type shit Leibniz was so beyond wrong about this smh
• chikere232 2y ago
  Don't buy Canon. They've also been very shitty about third party lenses
• drbscl 2y ago
  Yeah, that's pretty bad business practice. I have a few fuji cameras, and sadly their webcam software doesn't work for me, but for a cheap fix I bought a low-cost (~$10) HDMI USB capture card on AliExpress, and it works wonders.
• ben_w 2y ago
  > Software development isn’t free Given how long digital cameras have been around (more because that says it can be done with a codebase that fits in context rather than anything about memorisation), I wonder how good LLMs are at coding this specific thing. (I don't have a camera to try it with, or I'd give it a go myself).
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• andrewstuart 2y ago
  I had an oherwise perfectly fine Canon camera which I spent hours trying to make work as a webcam by downloading this and that and configuring this and that and in the end discovered it was not possible for some reason and got rid of the camera. If I buy a camera again (probably won't), #1 selection criteria will be connectivity.
• mihaaly 2y ago
  The penny-fucking behaviour of huge organization in parallel of pushing at you unwanted (actually obstructing) messages in various ways, email, pop-ups and tootip suggestions and advices, CI/CD pushed on the user on a prominent way are repelling. In parallel to the rubbish web presence not working reliably or at all, far from being easy for clients but usually having bells and whistles for distraction. I saved quite a bit of money thinking twice if I want to be abused by products made for the benefit of the organization mainly. Sometimes with side benefits for the user, but that is more like coincidence, side effect of addressing the organization's needs. Less and less point buying consumer products if it just makes your life similarly difficult, not better.
  • tiborsaas 2y ago
    I thought it's weird to have "fillérbaszó" to have such a direct english counterpart, but then I checked your username :)
    • mihaaly 2y ago
      ; )
  • jwr 2y ago
    The thing is, nobody cares. As long as consumers keep making uneducated choices and companies keep copying one another, that's what we will be getting, and honestly, that's what we deserve. After all, people watch "reviews" of video gear on YouTube (pretty much all "reviewers" get the gear for free and then pretend they are objective). These "reviewers" use the gear for all of several hours before making the video and forgetting about the gear. But that's what people base their buying decisions on. And then, "competition" doesn't exist, because companies seem to be hell-bent on copying one another's idiotic ideas. Everybody is afraid to take a bolder step and make something different because, you know, next quarter's profits, and bonuses. So, nobody cares.
    • nileshtrivedi 2y ago
      Louis Rossmann is putting together a Consumer Action Task Force. If people care, now would be a good time to show it.
• ekianjo 2y ago
  What did you expect from proprietary software?
  • RegW 2y ago
    Proprietary software is just one part of this issue. There seems to be a growing trend in attempting to entrap a servile subscriber base within your own walled enclosure. To be successful you need to keep your buyer unaware of the trap until they have too much invested within your walls to cut their losses emotionally. Here the poster has bought a high cost camera (even at a discount) without realising there would be an on-going recurring cost. Expensive propriety hardware, tied to propriety software, tied to an online account with telemetry, where nothing works without all the other bits is a wonderful trap. It works great for John Deer and I guess will soon be coming with your next vehicle. Personally, someone bought me a Fitbit Sense 2 watch for Christmas. It can't even be used as a watch until you have signed in with a Google account and "consent to Google using my health and wellness data". Of course you don't get to see this before you break the seal on the box. And although the watch gathers lots of your data, you can't see it until after it has been upload to Google, and some of it is only available once you have signed up for Fitbit Premium. But wait, it gets better. The time on the default watch face is tiny (for an old fart like me). I could download a larger one, if I signed up for Fitbit Premium. I could sign up to download the developer kit and write my own for free (a new watch face is a simple example). However, if I go too far and accidentally break the data collection, they reserve the right to suspend my accounts and turn my £200 "watch" into a brick. I am still deciding if I can return my sanity using a hammer.
    • ekianjo 2y ago
      Proprietary software is absolutely the issue. Once you open that door you are just waiting for the long list of abuses to run down on you over time. Proprietary software puts the power on the publisher's part and therefore you are completely at their mercy. > It can't even be used as a watch until you have signed in with a Google account and "consent to Google using my health and wellness data". Of course you don't get to see this before you break the seal on the box. Fitbit is not supported but for many smart watches you can use gadgetbridge to avoid sending your data anywhere
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• atoav 2y ago
  HDMI output to 8 Euro USB-Grabber is the solution. However this is a case of: Why the fuck did they not just make it a class compliant webcam to begin with.
• m463 2y ago
  I wonder if you could just do it with the canon api? They have CCAPI which is the camera control api, I believe it is rest based.
• divan 2y ago
  I use my global shutter Sony A9 III as a webcam as well and it's amazing, but Sony has it's own WTF moment. It has a feature of showing custom grid line / frames in the camera screen (like for passport photo) and it costs $149 [1] :-) Quote from [1]: "At $149, this may be the most cost-effective camera accessory ever." All other features (including selection of on which eye - left or right - AI human tracking autofocus should focus on) are free :) [1] https://alphauniverse.com/gridline-license/ https://alphauniverse.com/gridline-license/
  • sitkack 2y ago
    I can't believe the license is permanent! Sony is leaving so much on the table. I'd introduce a gridline-lite for 2 gridlines and then a middle tier for 3 gridlines and a box. Another option would be to use blockchain and wifi so that customers (affiliates) could earn extra cash on vacation by pairing their camera with other tourists that see the feature and like it. That same blockchain technology could also enable off network usage based billing of say 25 cents each time a picture is taken. Pixel noise water mark cryptographic hashes to track compliance, of course.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• irusensei 2y ago
  I have an EOS Kiss X4 (Rebel T2?) with Magic Lantern firmware. It uses the same software referenced in the article for MacOS and Windows. On Linux you can use v4l2loopback and gphoto2 but it requires loading an out of tree kernel module.
  • reddalo 2y ago
    I have an old EOS 550D (I think it's called Rebel T2 in the US?) and I can use the webcam software for free. I downloaded a copy back in 2020 when Covid hit and Canon decided to release it. Maybe that would be the key to reverse engineer it and make it free for everybody?
    • irusensei 2y ago
      Same model. I've bought it in Japan so the model is labeled Kiss X4. Apparently they give it a different name for the product depending on the market: EOS 550D = Rebel T2i = EOS Kiss X4 Software works but you need to pay a recurring subscription (aargh I hate this model) to unlock features your hardware already supports.
• n00b_heal 2y ago
  I know, some things you don't know beforehand, but by buying this you endorse this greed. You make it perpetuate. Don't
• helboi4 2y ago
  The fact that its a subscription is what really rubs me up the wrong way. Not everything deserves to be a subscription. Why is everything a subscription these days?
  • liontwist 2y ago
    Last cycle everyone thought adding an App Store to their product would bring developers out of the wood work to make them money. Just envy at the big players and hope for that sweet recurring revenue.
  • lvturner 2y ago
    The one metric that matters: Annual Recurring Revenue
  • flr03 2y ago
    So that company don't have to make new products to get your money but print money forever, milk the cow to the last drop.
  • dgb23 2y ago
    The goal is to collect rent. Find arbitrary reasons to justify squeezing customers on a regular basis. Customers are treated as assets. Often, but not exclusively, via software based subscriptions.
  • popcalc 2y ago
    When interest rates were near zero it was necessary for inflation resistant portfolio growth.
  • uniq7 2y ago
    Because people pay them. If we refused to pay them and bought similar or even worse alternatives out of spite, they wouldn't exist.
    • smft9 2y ago
      This wasn't true the first time America was ruled by monopolies, and it isn't true now.
• swiftcoder 2y ago
  The whole real-camera-as-webcam field seems like a complete disaster. The few models that do work well in this scenario (clean HDMI output, no auto-shutoff, etc) became very expensive during the early pandemic days.
• camtarn 2y ago
  So, uh, has anybody noticed that the headline is false? You can use your Canon camera as a webcam without having to pay for it. It even says so in the last image in the article! You plug it in via USB and you get a webcam. It's just that you can't use any feature other than reading the video feed. But you can get other software for that. I guess "You can't use Canon's webcam software to adjust your video feed, or remote control the camera, or get 60fps video; that will be $5/month" would make a less catchy headline.
  • Etheryte 2y ago
    This is misleading. You don't get a proper video feed, you get 720p at 30 fps out of a camera that shoots 4K at 60 fps. On top of that, no white balance, no color correction, no etc. My laptop's built in webcam does better than that.
    • camtarn 2y ago
      You're arguing past me. What I'm saying is that without paying, the Canon is a webcam: it's a camera that plugs in and gives your computer a video input. It may not be the best possible webcam that it can be, for sure. And paying a subscription for the extra capabilities does suck! But nonetheless, the central point of the headline - "you cannot use it as a webcam" is false.
• frognumber 2y ago
  I firmly believe this is the branch digital cameras are dying on, and at this point, probably must die on. If these opened up, at least to the level iPhone did in 2007, they'd have an ecosystem as people still used them. As-is, for most purposes, my Android phone is a better camera than my full frame interchangeable lens camera.
  • liontwist 2y ago
    I agree with your comment. But as phone cameras are reaching limits due to the physical amount of light that they can capture, “computational photography” ML models are essentially making up details that aren’t there. So your Android photos may have the look you want, but be worse for many purposes.
  • josephg 2y ago
    I think I disagree on every point you've raised here. First, my sony camera (and all sony cameras released in the last ~3+ years) support USB video streaming out of the box, with no drivers. I suspect other brands are the same. It looks like canon is just stuck in the dark ages on this one. They also support remote camera control over USB, and all sorts of other things. Mostly - but not entirely - in an open ecosystem. I have several devices which can control the camera over the USB connection - so it can't be that hard. Second, are you sure your android phone takes better photos? What camera & lens do you have on your digital camera? Have you upgraded from the kit lens it came with? I got a sony a7iv last year. If I take the same photo with my a7 and my iphone, the photos are wildly different. The iphone's photos are lovely, but they have this very slightly AI generated gloss about them. Everything is slightly too clean somehow. Its like I'm looking at reality plus. In comparison, The photos from my sony camera feel like real photos. Dark things are dark. Light things are light. If I crank the ISO at night, the photos are noisy. If I blow out the aperature, the depth of field hits you like a truck made of clouds. The photos look like what I pointed my camera at. In short, I massively prefer the photos I get from my dedicated camera. I suspect if I showed you, you'd prefer them too.
    • sbarre 2y ago
      > I suspect other brands are the same. My research shows Sony is the outlier here. Fuji, Canon, Nikon and Panasonic all require software or drivers to be used as a USB camera (or at least did as of a year ago or so). Also, the camera control software these companies put out, for a computer or a phone, is almost always awful. Buggy, slow, unreliable.. It's a real problem.
• ssijak 2y ago
  I have cannon r5 and previously had sony cameras. I'm bamboozeled how in this day and age software connecting cameras with PCs is so bad, not to mention tethered shooting. And the fact that 5+k camera have slow wifi chips for no reason so you cant tether via wifi just angers me. Software on the actual camera is yet another question for me, why don't we have cameras with full fledged modern OS-es running custom androids for example with installable apps so you can finish a lot of stuff on the camera itself or make sharing to wherever a breeze.
  • jpc0 2y ago
    No professional wants to deal with wifi, maybe ethernet. So it's at most a prosumer feature for which the wifi they have is fine. For professional use we want SDI which can transmit uncompressed video at whatever frame rate the camera supports, and we pay for that... Maybe HDMI but that has it's own headaches... And the moment you want Android with apps on it you run into all the problems that comes with Android with apps on it... You are then also responsible for keeping said app up to date. If you think android solves that problem you purely need to look at the custom modding community for how annoying firmware support is, and these cameras won't have generic phone camera chips, they have custom processors which would then require custom firmware. But my usual argument, if it's so easy go and do it. Many successful projects/companies has started exactly like that, why don't we have X? Go build it.
    • ssijak 2y ago
      Realistically, a better wifi chip would add almost nothing to production cost, but there are a lot of professionals doing product photography that would like fast wifi tethering. Well, that would prevent them from selling overpriced grips with integrated better wifis which is 999 usd from Cannon...
  • PetitPrince 2y ago
    > Software on the actual camera is yet another question for me, why don't we have cameras with full fledged modern OS-es running custom androids for example with installable apps so you can finish a lot of stuff on the camera itself or make sharing to wherever a breeze. A little more than 10 years ago Samsung tried that with their Galaxy NX (a bona fide DSLR running Android). It flopped and most reviewer noted that it a generally sluggish camera; a deal breaker when one of the design constraint of all their other competitor is to be reactive. We mustn't forget that the main purpose of a camera is to take pictures, not to connect to a network.
• Bengalilol 2y ago
  Out of nowhere comment, but I somehow stumbled upon this thread which seems to point to OBS for making it work. FWIW. <https://www.reddit.com/r/canon/comments/skdz89/experience_so_far_using_g5x_mark_ii_as_zoom_webcam/ https://www.reddit.com/r/canon/comments/skdz89/experience_so...>
  • Etheryte 2y ago
    This doesn't fix the problems listed in the article, you'd still only get a 720p 30 fps feed out of a camera that shoots 4K at 60 fps. That thread helps with Zoom not finding the low quality feed to begin with.
• mgaunard 2y ago
  Easy solution, don't use macOS.
  • Etheryte 2y ago
    It's the same experience on Windows, but you do you random internet rant guy.
    • mgaunard 2y ago
      I meant use a real OS like Linux.
• liontwist 2y ago
  > Software development isn’t free Part of the burden of this is on us. If a digital camera OS is a small embedded system running on a microcontroller it has a fixed cost, and lasts forever, just like the electrical components. If it’s an instance of chromium running on Ubuntu server or Android, with hundreds of dependencies in your program alone than the cost to stop it from bricking is effectively infinite. (I’m even aware of medical surgery devices using Electron these days)
  • nolist_policy 2y ago
    The Dragon spacecraft uses Electron as well.
    • liontwist 2y ago
      I would not make that choice, but At least that has someone looking at it everyday. It’s not a device that gets left to do its job for 5 years. Those early chromium devs had no idea the whole world would depend on them!
• chvid 2y ago
  Wait until you hear about Canon printers.
  • jcmfernandes 2y ago
    I gave up on mine. It's more than obvious to me that it doesn't care if there's ink in the cartridge after some time and just starts malfunctioning.
• jolmg 2y ago
  > and they should—due to the lack of standards—provide software that allows you to use their cameras as intended. There is a standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_video_device_class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_video_device_class
  • formerly_proven 2y ago
    Yes, the articles complaints (no free way to use it as a webcam, 30 minute limits etc.) doesn't seem to apply to many camera brands apart from Canon.
    • dmix 2y ago
      And Canon's marketshare has been declining for years https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/content/latest-from-mpb/2024-challenger-camera-brands-continue-to-take-market-share https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/content/latest-from-mpb/2024-chall... Sony encourages their use for vlogging/youtube because that's a huge market and let's you plug in HDMI to your computer without using special software
    • frankchn 2y ago
      It doesn't apply to Canon's recent cameras either. The R1, R5 Mark II, R6 Mark II, R8, and R50 have built-in UVC support now.
  • TheJoeMan 2y ago
    devil's advocate, but this is not "using the cameras as intended". This is a camera for photography, I don't think a common person would see it and think "this is intended as a webcam". On the one hand, perhaps this fixed software should be a one-time purchase and not a subscription. However, if this software was provided for free, what incentive would the management at Cannon have for investing into updating the software for MacOS when it inevitably breaks? I think there is a small subset of users using this camera as a webcam, and frankly I'm surprised Cannon even has an official app.
• snthd 2y ago
  This model is not listed as supported, but generally gphoto2 can do the webcam thing for DSLRs. http://gphoto.org/doc/remote/ http://gphoto.org/doc/remote/
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• dghughes 2y ago
  This reminds me of Samsung and the SPO2 the oxygen sensor on the S8+ (I think) phone. All was well until one day an update disabled access to the sensor. Worse it was only for Canada where it was blocked. The access to the physical sensor on a phone I had owned for a few years, gone. Oh but you could buy their new watch that had an SPO2 sensor on it. Disabling a physical component on a device a person owns and has owned for a while shouldn't be permitted.
  • wat10000 2y ago
    Only disabling it in Canada sounds like a legal or licensing issue. Still Samsung’s fault for not working that out ahead of time, but probably not a cash grab.
• wkjagt 2y ago
  It's actually worse than the title suggests. It's $5 per month! I wonder what justifies this recurring cost.
  • throwaway287391 2y ago
    Yes, I'm so completely fed up with recurring subscriptions for things with negligible or no recurring costs for the seller. This one is of course particularly obnoxious given the hardware itself is expensive and the recurring cost is 0. But for example I would've gotten an Oura ring by now if they would just charge twice the price for the ring itself and not require a subscription, even though the subscription fees over the lifetime of the hardware would probably add up to a significantly smaller amount. To me it's just incredibly off-putting -- it reeks of greed and feels like a blatant attempt to fool customers by obscuring the actual cost. I guess it must be working for them, but for me, the cost of anything with a recurring fee gets mentally rounded up to "approximately $infinity".
• strange_aeons 2y ago
  My Canon EOS R8 can be configured to connect via USB-C as a webcam and works perfectly.
  • Etheryte 2y ago
    The EOS R8 was released less than a year ago and that output is still capped at 2K and 30 fps. Meanwhile the camera itself shoots 4K at 60 fps (if you go Full HD, you can even shoot 180 fps). So saying it works perfectly is not quite accurate, you still need either extra hardware or extra software if you want to actually use it to the full capacity.
• cynicalsecurity 2y ago
  The lad is using an Apple computer which is a closed walled garden architecture designed specifically for whales. I'm sorry, but this is an invitation to be fleeced. A loud cry to everyone around to put their hands into your purse and grab some money. Now you understand why people fight for open source software and use Linux. Join us or keep dealing with the walled garden scams.
• traverseda 2y ago
  I know this isn't the point, but here's my nixos script for using a canon DSLR as a webcam https://codeberg.org/traverseda/nixos-config/src/commit/ee3f891e72a59c92acb3f9d74c6e81d8cb61a935/nixos/misc/dslr-webcam.nix https://codeberg.org/traverseda/nixos-config/src/commit/ee3f... To get this out of nixos you need to create 4 files dslrWebcamConfContent goes into your modprobe config dslrUdevRule goes into your udev rules dslrWebcamScript goes somewhere, probably /opt dslrWebcamService is a systemd service.
  • stuartjohnson12 2y ago
    Upvoted for hacking on hacker news
• shahzaibmushtaq 2y ago
  I saw people using Sony cameras as webcams, probably because of the easy plug and play setup.
• parkaboy 2y ago
  The software in the article looks like a fun little oldschool cracking/RE project.
• virtualritz 2y ago
  That's reminds me when I was in South East Asia a few years back and wanted to do some time lapse or series photography with my Sony Alpha a7ii. A camera that I had paid close to 2k€ for (just body, no glass). It required an app to be installed on the camera that was paid-for. Which in term required the camera to be connected to a WiFi. Imagine discovering this while on a trip in the jungle or the desert or whatever ... It was a one time purchase (I think around 10€) but it was still a complete wtf. You had to purchase the app through the camera's app store. You read right. Ofc this failed as my CC was declined because I live in Germany and the transaction got marked as suspicious, coming from SEA. So I had to go to town and hunt down a wifi USB dongle so I could turn my laptop into a WiFi hotspot for the camera, while using the VPN masking the built-in WiFi to be connected to a German IP. You had to enter the CC details through the camera's on-screen keyboard that was operated with the joystick on the camera's body. It took me a good ten minutes. No words.
  • azalemeth 2y ago
    Pentax cameras are much better at the ui and do not have any of this shit. They are also bulletproof and nearly indestructible, favoured by war photographers, and tend to have excellent spec sheets (if a bit of a a slow autofocus). The company went bankrupt and bought by Ricoh, which I sincerely hope will keep the brand alive. Capitalism does really seem to prefer the nickel and dime approach...
    • Symbiote 2y ago
      > (if a bit of a a slow autofocus). Sony's killer feature is (or was at some point) amazingly fast autofocus, which is very useful when photographing animals in the jungle.
    • SSLy 2y ago
      Ricoh still hasn't made a non-fixed-lens mirror-less. They're behind. OTOH that GRIIIx…
  • fxtentacle 2y ago
    Wow, I had the exact same experience with a Sony Alpha 6. Also used a laptop to VPN back home ...
• davidgrenier 2y ago
  v4l2-ctl on linux allows me to change such settings on a global level, maybe that might work if a version can be found on his OS.
• lvl155 2y ago
  Not to be off topic but Apple needs to build a fully featured full frame digital camera with an iPhone slot. That would be game over for so many users.
  • notoverthere 2y ago
    What do you mean by "an iPhone slot"? As in, so you can plug the camera into an iPhone and transfer photos from camera to phone?
• underlines 2y ago
  I use my Sony a7iv as a webcam. Plug the USB C in and it is recognized as a webcam. I got asked a lot im teams calls what webcam I use
• otikik 2y ago
  Eugh. Meanwhile, the 30 bucks camera I bought works out of the box. I didn't even need to install any software. Decent quality, no frills.
• mschuster91 2y ago
  Sony's "webcam" app that does the same purpose is free but buggy as fuck and not available on Apple M CPUs (at least not the one for the A7S2). I don't understand why this is necessary in the first place anyway. These cameras all have USB interfaces to expose the card content or even remote control, it wouldn't have cost them much engineering effort to add an UVC descriptor...
• WhyNotHugo 2y ago
  Software development isn't free, but someone buying a camera shouldn't _need_ to pay the manufacturer to ship them custom software for scenarios such as this. The manufacturer should include documentation so that anyone owning the camera can write software to integrate with it. TBH, this is true of pretty much any form of consumer hardware. But this isn't a technical problem, it's a social one. So we can't solve it with tech; we need legislation around this kind of BS.
• rickdeckard 2y ago
  "Yeah, we equipped your car with heated seats prior to transferring its ownership to you, but heating your seat is a license-protected comfort which requires a subscription" https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/7/23863258/bmw-cancel-heated-seat-subscription-microtransaction https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/7/23863258/bmw-cancel-heated... Many of those "features" were walked back on backlash, just to then be bundled "free" for the initial buyer only...
  • FireBeyond 2y ago
    > Many of those "features" were walked back on backlash, just to then be bundled "free" for the initial buyer only... Like Tesla... buy FSD? It doesn't transfer with you OR the vehicle, just ... vanishes.
• thih9 2y ago
  > $5/mo, $50/yr A one time payment would have been inconvenient, I assumed that based on the title; but that’s even worse.
• adamtaylor_13 2y ago
  This one behavior was the reason I bought a Sony instead of a canon, and will never buy a Canon. I’m just too old to fuck around with this type of bullshit anymore. I’m willing to offer so much loyalty to companies who aren’t in the business of fucking over their customers. Fuck Canon, fuck shady ass business practices.
• deskr 2y ago
  People need to start referring to those products with the "Enshittified" suffix. That's the Canon G5 X II Enshittified.
• hacym 2y ago
  Canon makes lots of software, so a little disingenuous to say that they are a hardware company that doesn’t get to charge for their software.
• thg 2y ago
  Doesn't help the op, but I use my Nikon Z6 II as a webcam under Fedora and have been doing this for a few months now, mostly without any problems. Here's a guide for those interested (not by me): https://www.crackedthecode.co/how-to-use-your-dslr-as-a-webcam-in-linux/ https://www.crackedthecode.co/how-to-use-your-dslr-as-a-webc...
• twothamendment 2y ago
  I've been eyeing the R6 mark ii, which is u understand correctly will connect to a computer and present itself as a video device so you don't need any additional software. I only run Linux, so that sounds great! I haven't pulled the trigger on it, can anyone who owns it confirm or deny this?
• stray 2y ago
  As a Nikon guy, I'm using my Z50 as a webcam with little fuss. I've got a fake battery that plugs into AC power -- and my output is through HDMI to an Elgato Cam link 4k. It doesn't overheat even after hours of use (unlike most full-frame sensors), and I've got it capturing in monochrome because I just really like B&W. And because its face/eye detect autofocus is reasonably capable -- I can keep a wide aperture/shallow depth of field, which in turn, results in beautiful bokeh... So no Teams filters to blur my background -- I'm using optics instead.
  • tartoran 2y ago
    That's nice but is it worth spending so much to get natural boketh in over team calls?
    • formerly_proven 2y ago
      I don't think too many people are buying a Nikon solely for this purpose, but rather they already have it and _also_ use it as a webcam. The main advantage there is - in my view anyway - that it allows you to control the field of view easily, compared to the built-in webcam. The far better image quality is just a bonus.
      • tartoran 2y ago
        Absolutely but when you set up one as a webcam you usually leave it in place as a webcam setup unless you want natural bokeths only from time to time. It also depends on the line of work, if you're in some media related field and it is required to have pristine streaming, well, that is a whole different story.
        • formerly_proven 2y ago
          For me it’s super quick to set up, I just put the 40/2 lens on, move two switches (photo/movie selector to movie and mode dial to a user preset position) and drop it into a quick release plate. Plug in HDMI and turn on/off as needed.
• redbell 2y ago
  This reminds me of HP turning printing into a monthly subscription [1], BMW experimenting with heated seat subscriptions [2], and countless other manufacturers trying to rent us physical features or products we’ve already paid for. It’s as if owning something outright is becoming a relic of the past. Honestly, this trend is getting out of hand. Imagine if we live to the day where fresh air becomes a monthly subscription—with tiered plans, of course! Basic air might be free but stale, while premium plans offer "mountain-fresh" or "ocean-breeze" options. And heaven forbid you forget to renew your subscription or your credit card expires—suddenly, breathing might not be in your favor! _____________ 1. https://www.pcworld.com/article/2251993/the-nightmare-is-real-hp-makes-printing-a-subscription.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/2251993/the-nightmare-is-rea... 2. https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscription...
• gwbas1c 2y ago
  This article is missing some very critical details. Do you have to use the software from Cannon? What about any other webcam software that runs on Mac? Does Cannon's software support non-Cannon webcams? IE, is it standalone software that the author prefers to use over other webcam software? Is this a case where most customers will never use the webcam software, thus Cannon is "passing the savings on to them" by charging separately for the software?
  • vr46 2y ago
    Canon, and yes you do, the camera is not recognized without the drivers installed. Actually, it barely works even with the drivers installed. There is a free version that I have had working in the past, to glorious success, with the Canon 1DX, but the current 5Div does nothing, and I don't want to pay to find out that it still doesn't work. There's half a camera's worth of features in these things that people won't use, but they still pay for them.
  • Koffiepoeder 2y ago
    I use a Canon EOS 90D via hdmi & streamlink, so yes there are alternatives.
• pbasista 2y ago
  This is another case in point that people should research the software capabilities of the devices they purchase. Typically, that can be reduced to one simple question: Can it run custom firmware or custom operating system? If it cannot, you have to make do with whatever restrictions the manufacturer has imposed in their software. Be it a subscription for webcam mode. Or even completely disabling your device if they so decide. If it can run custom firmware or operating system, there is a fair chance that the community creates software for this device that is actually good. One that allows you to do what you want with it.
  • theodorc 2y ago
    Well, is there any camera that allow you do just that?
    • pbasista 2y ago
      I am not sure. I am unfamiliar with the consumer camera segment. I have heard about some "firmware enhancements" like Magic Lantern or CHDK for Canon which, if I understand correctly, are some kind of extensions that could be loaded by the camera's main firmware on startup and then provide additional functionality. It is not a custom firmware. But it offers similar functionality.
• zaseevazarina 2y ago
  [dead]
• nroize 2y ago
  During COVID, I was able to set up my 5DS (a ~10yo model now) as a webcam for free. Did they stop supporting the software they released to do that or just paywalled it?
• jjkaczor 2y ago
  Ugh - the continual "enshitification" of products and offerings. (Betchya 5-6 years ago this would have worked without issue) Am sick of basic features being pay-walled, or subscription-only - or abandoned/bricked when the company decides to "end-of-life" them after a couple years. While it ain't pretty - or small - at least it doesn't require a subscription... "CinePi"... (https://github.com/schoolpost/CinePI https://github.com/schoolpost/CinePI)
• oliwarner 2y ago
  > Canon is a hardware company, not a software company The problem is we commercially enable hardware companies to be shitty software companies by buying hardware that lacks basic open protocols. We accept single platform lenses that could work in any similar mount. Photographers invite this mistreatment. It would be trivial for Canon to stream the live view out as UVC over USB and it would have Just Worked™ as a webcam on every platform. This isn't just a Canon problem. It took Nikon several generations of dSLR to add standard USB ports. This could be Japanese hubris or a lack of competition or a lack of engineers actually talking to their customers.
• phkahler 2y ago
  >> Software development isn’t free, and I’m happy to pay for software I use regularly. However, Canon is a hardware company, not a software company, and they should—due to the lack of standards—provide software that allows you to use their cameras as intended. Software development isn't free, but everyone needs to hammer the message home to everyone they know that the marginal cost of software is ZERO. Any company continuing to charge for software is probably rolling that money back into enshittification which nobody wants anyway. This Canon software would actually make their product more valuable like the software inside the camera that they don't charge subscription for. Perhaps a one time price for an app, but this whole subscription and advertising trend is one I have not and will not join.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• mmaunder 2y ago
  Amazing the market share Canon has considering how bad they are at software.
• knowitnone 2y ago
  but you are using their software and they can choose how to sell that to you however the want. You're options is to vent and not buy another Canon. This subscription-based purchase is not new and will only get worst. Opensource FTW
• josefritzishere 2y ago
  Canon can GTFO, this nonsense profiteering should be illegal, and probably will be eventually. It's hostile to customers and will be received poorly.
• reverendsteveii 2y ago
  We seem to be passing the point where we discover new things that software can do and entering a phase where development is primarily going to be about gatekeeping, paywalling and eliminating capabilities. After all, why would you sell something when you can sell a subscription to that something and get paid every month? Even better, why not sell the thing and then rent the ability to use the thing?
• maerF0x0 2y ago
  I'm sure Canon would like me to also pay every cent I have for every sip of water I take, and the ones I do not. Companies that focus on what they want, rather than what the customer wants, will cease to exist (or change hands).
• bloopernova 2y ago
  What setup would people recommend? I've tried using an old android phone as a webcam on macOS but it kept flaking out and needing to be reset. What webcams, if any, have higher quality optics? Do other SLRs do the same thing as Canon and charge a subscription?
  • slhck 2y ago
    Some thoughts based on my anecdotal experience — but it depends on the price you are willing to pay. You can get quite good webcams for $100–300 (from Insta360, Obsbot, Logitech maybe …) which work out of the box with USB-C and have mostly okayish software that supports changing things like brightness, white balance, etc. These however still have small sensors and cannot achieve a good shallow depth-of-field (bokeh). Running them at higher sensitivity (ISO), e.g. in darker environments, inevitably causes noise. But if you just want to participate in meetings, it does not matter. I had a Logitech StreamCam and upgraded to an Insta360 Link 2C, which is definitely much better but still not on-par with a proper camera. You should at least get a good keylight or ring light. The next step up would be mirrorless cameras with built-in or interchangeable lenses made for vlogging, which also can be used like a webcam. They have much bigger sensors and better image quality at a pricing point of $400-1000, e.g. Sony ZV-E10 II, Fuji X-M5, Canon EOS M50 Mark II, … most of them claim webcam support with the provided software. Fuji's software is bad though, so I wouldn't recommend it on a Mac. I can't talk about the other ones. The benefit is that they also have a flip screen that you can use for better framing. They all support webcam modes. If you have a camera that has an HDMI output and that outputs a clean HDMI signal (without any overlays), you can also buy an HDMI USB capture device and feed that into OBS, which allows you to set up a virtual webcam. There are cheap no-name USB capture cards that produce mediocre images, and more top-of-the line ones like the Elgato Cam Link. This should be the most device-independent variant where you're also not dependent on any vendor's proprietary software.
    • bloopernova 2y ago
      Thank you for a comprehensive answer, I appreciate the time you put into it.
• ryao 2y ago
  Don’t most of these cameras have an hdmi output? During the pandemic, I assisted a local church with streaming after their plea for help reached me. We initially used a fairly cheap video camera’s hdmi output with a cheap HDMI to USB dongle to get a feed to OBS. It worked extremely well, although it was later replaced with a professional camera that had actuators to allow it to be moved via a remote during their services.
  • ComputerGuru 2y ago
    Some foresaw this and add an OSD showing time/battery/etc to the HDMI output so you can’t get a clean feed.
    • ryao 2y ago
      Is there no option for turning that off?
• thtmnisamnstr 2y ago
  Can't you still use the European site to download the EOS Webcam Utility for free? https://www.canon-europe.com/cameras/eos-webcam-utility/ https://www.canon-europe.com/cameras/eos-webcam-utility/
• recursive 2y ago
  Is this like how I have to pay my mobile carrier to use my own phone as a wifi hotspot?
• __mharrison__ 2y ago
  I purchased a Canon M50 to use as a webcam during covid. I spend a lot of time doing remote training and quality video is paramount to me. At that time, the Canon webcam software worked fine on my Windows machine. I later moved back to a Mac as my daily driver and the Canon software was never reliable on m1 chips. The camera didn't have clean HDMI out. I was pretty frustrated because my fancy webcam no longer worked. Canon showed little desire to support Macs. I purchased a used Sony that had clean HDMI and it worked great with a cheap HDMI capture device. I now use an Insta360 webcam with a large sensor. Image quality and focus speed are great. It has slightly less bokeh effect than the Canon and Sony, but folks always comment about how good my video looks. They are also quite a bit cheaper than going the DSLR route for webcam.
• sulam 2y ago
  This article essentially boils down to “Canon is a hardware company, they shouldn’t be allowed to charge for software.” I’m surprised this is news to you, but Canon can make money any way they want (within the bounds of local law). There is no law saying a company known for their hardware cannot decide to sell software. If Canon started trying to sell cameras that literally only work with their software (not the case today) then maybe you’d have a semi-valid beef, although such a camera would also sell very poorly in the market given the many alternatives that exist, including Canon’s own previous lineup. Even then it wouldn’t be illegal, just harder to justify from a business perspective. Perhaps they could give away a DSLR for a yearly subscription and the math would pencil out for some people. That would be mildly interesting. Canon would have to do a lot of work to close such a product, though, as all of their existing hardware is extremely open.
• yapyap 2y ago
  > Admittedly, it did not cost me the $6300 from the article's title, much closer to $900 I am confused, I assume the 900 dollars is the cost of his camera but where did the 6300 figure come from?
  • FireBeyond 2y ago
    MSRP for the EOS R1, the flagship camera - but apropos of anything, that's not a camera ANYONE would use for a webcam (its focus area is event/sports, and high shooting rates. For anyone else, generally, the R5II is effectively the high end.
• kiddico 2y ago
  I know this isn't the point but investing in a usb capture card will permanently solve this issue for all future cameras.
• neycoda 2y ago
  What sort of society are we careening toward? More power to the hackers!
• slipperybeluga 2y ago
  [dead]
• hardwaresofton 2y ago
  It absolutely fascinates me that GoPro didn't dominate this space