Elgato Facecam 4K - Review
I think, that like everyone else, the first webcam I owned was from Logitech, but as tech started to get better, more camera options became available. But for a long time, those cameras operated with the idea that the tech inside could be basic, as the software would do the heavy lifting, Elgato disagreed. The Facecam 4K is not the first webcam from the group, but is far and away the best they have made, let me explain.
Unboxing the camera, I honestly expected the unit to be much bigger than it was. Sure in photos it looks large, but that is often due to screens it sits above, but it was far smaller than expected. This of course led to an expectation of the quality not being quite as good as was indicated, so when I connected it, I expected to be letdown. Well, first I had to install the Camera Hub program, which gave me full control over the camera and the moment the preview image appeared, I was honestly shocked as how clear the image was. By default the camera was set to a field of view of 100%, meaning it was showing everything and I mean everything. My previous camera was a Razer Kiyo Pro and while it was decent, it had issues with its FOV, the Elgato option destroyed it, and that was before I started tweaking the settings.
Now I am not a camera person, I could not tell you what ISO you should use when shooting on a beach, or on a city street, but I know when a picture looks good. The reason why I never bothered to worry about learning settings was simply due to my not caring about the photos I was taking. Normally, the defaults are fine for me and if I take a shot that is a bit dark or light, I tweak it myself on the computer. So, when I opened up Camera Hub and saw the picture, I thought it was great, I was hesitant to touch the settings, but thankfully the team had the smarts to make them really easy to understand. The basic settings are broken down into Frame, Picture, Exposure, White Balance and Processing, with each giving more control over the picture you see. A number of those options have an auto mode, letting you turn it on and then it adjusts based on your room type, which also helps if you have large windows that let in varying amounts of natural light across the day.
About the only setting I changed at first was increasing the FOV, bumping it up to 200% and that was so my floor was not in the shot. This did not require any custom commands, or coding, I just had to adjust the slider and then recenter the camera to where I wanted it to be. With the empty cardboard boxes from things I am sent hidden, I figured I was good to go and when I jumped into a Discord call, I found a few things I was less than happy about. Namely, the lack of background blur and yes, I know Discord has that as an option, but I don’t like their attempt, thankfully Camera Hub had an effects tab. Now the effects are basic, flipping the image and applying some LUTs, but installing the Nvidia Broadcast SDK got me more. This gave me the options I was used to from Nvidia Broadcast, but without the need for that program and the having to deal with its issues. Adjusting these settings meant I had to go back and ensure my other settings were still good and they were fine, which meant my Discord calls were back on track.
Through Discord and Teams, I was able to get some nice use time with the camera and a few people commented on how clear the image was. Even when I zoomed out to show them how much control I had over it, the quality was never questioned, but I had one final test I knew I had to test, how would it work on Twitch. Streaming games is something that I do to break up the review grind. Don’t get me wrong, I love reviewing, but there are some weeks where I go from game to game, tech to tech and so on, it does become a drag at times. So what I do, is use streaming as a means to play other games that I don’t need to critique, even though I do still. The camera quality on my Twitch streams were great, with Australian internet being as it is, I was expecting that it would look as bland as my Razer was, but it just looked clean and easy to follow. I did run a few tests, low light, total darkness and even a lot of light and the camera held up ok, though the total darkness was not something I would recommend anytime soon.
Elgato have truly outdone themselves with the Facecam 4K, though I would like to think someone could have come up with a better name. From the moment I connected the camera to my PC, I was greeted with an insanely clear picture and everyone who saw it, was shown the same. Camera Hub has a lot of options for those who want to dive into them, but keeps the core functions to the basics for folks who are not DLSR masters. While the price is more expensive than others, for the picture quality and amount of control, it is a price that is worth paying.
The Score
9.0
Review unit provided by Elgato
The Pros
The camera is very powerful and without any adjustments offers a nice, clear image
The Camera Hub program is super easy to use, even if you are not a videography master
The Cons
Needing to install extra options to get more backgrounds
Some programs won’t use the backgrounds if you select the camera itself, which is odd
