Narrow FoV webcam

[anxious_ant]

Webcam is required for all work Teams meeting now so looking for a proper camera.
I’m using £50 one from Amazon which has ring light but the quality and focus is not too good. The masking of the background keeps flickering. Sound quality is good though.

Looking for Logitech webcam as it seems like it’s the go to webcam. I believe C920 has narrow FoV of around 70 degrees but some comments are saying the image quality is not brilliant.

Any thought please?

[cobra kid]

Maybe I'm being a bit dim, but are you more bothered how you look or what you can actually see from others?

[anxious_ant]

cobra kid said:

Maybe I'm being a bit dim, but are you more bothered how you look or what you can actually see from others?

It’s now I’m presented to the audience. Need to make a good impression for clients.

[Pothole]

anxious_ant said:

cobra kid said:

Maybe I'm being a bit dim, but are you more bothered how you look or what you can actually see from others?

It’s now I’m presented to the audience. Need to make a good impression for clients.

Do you have any evidence that they're influenced by picture quality?

[ReverendCounter]

Pothole said:

Do you have any evidence that they're influenced by picture quality?

Jeez, just let the guy ask for webcam without the interrogation!

[anxious_ant]

The reasoning for narrower FoV is so that it doesn’t capture too much of the room. I am hoping this will reduce the flickering issue when applying blurred background on Teams.

No one mentioned anything but in Teams I can notice that my background is flickering and the exposure in the video is not the best.

[Scrump]

I use a Logitech 270 which has a narrow 60 degree fov. The Logitech software has the option of a narrow or wide view . I use it on wide (60 degrees) but the narrow view is obviously less than 60 degrees.
The quality for teams video calls is fine.

[anxious_ant]

Scrump said:

I use a Logitech 270 which has a narrow 60 degree fov. The Logitech software has the option of a narrow or wide view . I use it on wide (60 degrees) but the narrow view is obviously less than 60 degrees.
The quality for teams video calls is fine.

Cheers I will have a look.

Prices of webcams have increased recently too, so difficult to justify going for top of the range Logitech.

[Pothole]

ReverendCounter said:

Pothole said:

Do you have any evidence that they're influenced by picture quality?

Jeez, just let the guy ask for webcam without the interrogation!

I don't believe anyone else gives a st, so he's overthinking it. I knew a bloke once who spent £1000+ on a treadmill rather than going for a run in the large park right next to his house. The reason her gave me was that potential or existing clients to his two man IT desktop support company might see him all read-faced and sweaty and not hire him. I had no words. This seems similar,

[deckster]

Pothole said:

I don't believe anyone else gives a st, so he's overthinking it. I knew a bloke once who spent £1000+ on a treadmill rather than going for a run in the large park right next to his house. The reason her gave me was that potential or existing clients to his two man IT desktop support company might see him all read-faced and sweaty and not hire him. I had no words. This seems similar,

FWIW I disagree. As with everybody else I spend all day on video conferences at the moment and I regard it as part of my job to have a clean work environment and a crisp image with good audio. The folks who are using their phone cameras whilst propped in a corner of the bedroom are very obvious - and as with everything else, presenting a professional image can be very important.

Back on topic, I've tried a few but the C920 is best I've used. Far better quality than the £50 no-name jobbies, auto-focus, very stable sitting on top of the monitor. I also find the cheaper cameras are really poor in low light and very inconsistent in their exposure full stop.

The C270 is OK but noticeably lower image quality than the C920. Well worth the extra money for the better camera if it's something that is going to be the way that you present yourself to the rest of the world.

[sjg]

FYI, the flickering is likely your lights. If there's software for your webcam (I know Logitech do) you can usually change it between 50Hz and 60Hz - different markets have different electric frequencies. Often you can also play around with FoV, focus, zoom and other things too.

Even if you don't really see the flicker in your own video it can be enough to play havoc with the background detection.

If you are buying a new camera, the C920 is really good.

[Pothole]

deckster said:

The folks who are using their phone cameras whilst propped in a corner of the bedroom are very obvious - and as with everything else, presenting a professional image can be very important.

It CAN be (or could be) but IS it? Will anyone really lose business over such a thing? Really?

[anxious_ant]

deckster said:

FWIW I disagree. As with everybody else I spend all day on video conferences at the moment and I regard it as part of my job to have a clean work environment and a crisp image with good audio. The folks who are using their phone cameras whilst propped in a corner of the bedroom are very obvious - and as with everything else, presenting a professional image can be very important.

Back on topic, I've tried a few but the C920 is best I've used. Far better quality than the £50 no-name jobbies, auto-focus, very stable sitting on top of the monitor. I also find the cheaper cameras are really poor in low light and very inconsistent in their exposure full stop.

The C270 is OK but noticeably lower image quality than the C920. Well worth the extra money for the better camera if it's something that is going to be the way that you present yourself to the rest of the world.

Thanks. I regretted spending £50 on the current unbranded webcam but really needed one and back then it’s really hard to find any Logitech webcams.

I’m doing more and more video calls now and agree with what you’ve said, I want to present a professional image.

I need to blur my background as my home office is in the garage and whilst most of it is presentable the ultra wide angle of my current webcam captures too much of the garage.
MS Teams custom background is godsend for this part of the video keeps flickering between the background and my garage, unless I sit completely still.

I’m looking at the 920 as well but the 920S is slightly cheaper, and apparently newer.

[IJWS15]

Tidy up the real background, have seen some very strange effects when others use backgrounds, including what looked very like rabbits ears.

I don't care if they don't like the sort of books I read (all you can see behind me when the camera is on). Impress your customers with your clean, tidy and orderly home . . . . . .

[deckster]

Pothole said:

deckster said:

The folks who are using their phone cameras whilst propped in a corner of the bedroom are very obvious - and as with everything else, presenting a professional image can be very important.

It CAN be (or could be) but IS it? Will anyone really lose business over such a thing? Really?

I'm not sure why you are so animated by this. Sure, I think it unlikely that in your post-loss review, the prospect is going to say "yeah, everything else was great but your camera was too low res". But there is no harm in paying attention to all the little things and you really shouldn't underestimate the cumulative effect of being consistently professional.

All that aside, the OP has already said that he's unhappy with his image quality. Why don't you let him judge what is appropriate.

[anxious_ant]

sjg said:

FYI, the flickering is likely your lights. If there's software for your webcam (I know Logitech do) you can usually change it between 50Hz and 60Hz - different markets have different electric frequencies. Often you can also play around with FoV, focus, zoom and other things too.

Even if you don't really see the flicker in your own video it can be enough to play havoc with the background detection.

If you are buying a new camera, the C920 is really good.

Sorry perhaps I didn’t explain it clearly. It’s flickering between Teams custom background and my garage. Well parts of the video. Also my skin tone looks really flat (over exposed?). I used OBS previously which helped but to be honest I rather gave it working out of the box.

C920 comes highly recommended. It’s back in stock but there is a newer version, the C920S.

[anxious_ant]

IJWS15 said:

Tidy up the real background, have seen some very strange effects when others use backgrounds, including what looked very like rabbits ears.

I don't care if they don't like the sort of books I read (all you can see behind me when the camera is on). Impress your customers with your clean, tidy and orderly home . . . . . .

I’m not fortunate enough to have a nice room to be used as office. I have a desk in my bedroom but prefer to work in my garage for the work/home separation.

I might tidy up the garage a bit more after the lockdown to get rid of some stuff, but to be honest in my role I really didn’t expect to be working from home for this long.

[miniman]

I'm using a Razer Kiyo webcam, it's really good.

[deckster]

anxious_ant said:

Sorry perhaps I didn’t explain it clearly. It’s flickering between Teams custom background and my garage.

To be fair this happens anyway regardless of the quality of the camera. Unless you have a full professional green-screen setup, a piece of software trying to post-process a webcam image with a noisy background is always going to struggle.

Better in my opinion to have a tidy environment that you don't mind being broadcast to the world. Or if that's not possible, then something simple like just stringing up a flat-coloured sheet behind you will help with the flickering.

[LordGrover]

Perhaps prop an unobtrusive sex toy, just in view.
Nobody will notice anything else and your shabby garage will go unnoticed.