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Webcam too dark?

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Apr 5, 2011
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Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Anyone elses built-in webcam is way too dark on OS X Lion? In a brightly lit room, it looks really dark. Any way to play with the brightness, contrast, etc ?
 
I noticed that with FaceTime. I also noticed that with FaceTime it is super zoomed in. When I use Skype the darkness is not bad and the zoom is gone. Weird huh?
 
Like the monitor, this thing uses cheap components for the webcam. If does okay on good light, but at night under artificial light it can be very grainy.
 
Its not due to the cheap components my friend since the webcam looks stunning on the same environment when using Win 7,,,, so my understanding is that the issue is with the kexts maybe
 
Windows uses software correction to manipulate the sensor and to improve the overall look of the image. That is why most of the webcam drives in windows install a whole control pannel that gives you access to webcam functions. Skype uses software to improve the video a little bit on mac os.

The kext simply gives you access to the hardware, and that is working fine. You can access a higher resolution by going to quicktime and choosing record new movie.

And yes, facetime scales up the image and crops it to frame it for the iPhone dimensions. It tries to give you the closeup of your face in the same way it shows on the iphone.
 
Indeed a nice reply :thumbup:
 
@ElectronShaper (or anyone who may have an answer),

Using the method of opening quicktime and selecting a different quality works great, thanks! Is there a way to make it keep that video quality(Webcam resolution) setting as default? I've tried recording a video and saving it, and I don't see any option of changing preferences. It's not as though it's a show stopping problem as I don't use the webcam very often. It's just annoying to have to open quicktime, change the resolution then open photo booth just so I can use it. If I don't follow those steps I'm left with a picture quality that brings to mind those identity blocking clouds used on tv to protect identity. Any suggestions?

Thank you for your time and best regards,
Farbish
 
ElectronShaper said:
Like the monitor, this thing uses cheap components for the webcam. If does okay on good light, but at night under artificial light it can be very grainy.

Well, i don't think webcam is that bad! i've seen one of a MacBook pro late 2010 and there's really not too much difference ;).
Considering that is also 720p (I know the resolution is not everything) is a nice cam.
The macbook pro has a bit better contrast and maybe color.
 
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