We’re starting to see a new trend of consumer webcams that eschew microphones entirely, putting the focus entirely on video. This makes sense, because most webcam microphones are mediocre at best. We first looked at the Dell UltraSharp Webcam, a 4K camera that can capture razor-sharp video under the right lighting conditions. Now it’s Elgato’s turn with its first webcam, the Facecam. Like the UltraSharp, the Facecam has a high price of $199.99. It’s only 1080p, but it can still record a good picture if you’re lit up just right, and it offers manual exposure controls that other cameras lack. Unless you have the right lights, though, you’ll likely have to choose between a soft or a noisy picture. For the price, the Dell UltraSharp Webcam and our Editors’ Choice, microphone-equipped Razer Kiyo Pro are better performers.
Boxy and Solid
The Facecam is a slightly chunky, rectangular black box, with the front panel a deep, curved recess that holds the 24mm f/2.4 (full-frame equivalent) lens. A blue indicator LED sits on the left side of this recess, and notches on the top and bottom edges hold a separate, lens-cap-like privacy cover that clicks into place. The back panel holds a USB-C port for connecting to your computer. The included USB A-to-C cable is five feet long.
A screw mount on the bottom lets you attach the camera to any standard tripod, or to the included monitor clip. The clip has a standard hinge-and-lip design that braces against the top edge and back of your laptop screen or monitor, staying in place relatively securely. A smaller joint on the top surface of the clip lets you tilt the camera up and down, while an adjustable disc on the screw mount itself provides left-right rotation.
Manual Exposure Controls
The Elgato Camera Hub software allows for surprisingly granular control over the Facecam. Standard picture adjustments are available, including field of view tweaking (through digital zoom), contrast/saturation/sharpness sliders, and anti-flicker.
The big surprise is under the Exposure section, which by default lets you choose between center-weighted and frame-average automatic exposure. Unchecking the Automatic setting provides full shutter and ISO exposure controls, letting you dial exactly how you want the camera to shoot you based on the lighting.
While either automatic exposure mode works well enough, the ability to tweak exposure like a regular camera is welcome. White balance also offers your choice of automatic and precise adjustments, with a color temperature range of 2,800K to 12,500K.
You Choose: Noisy or Smudgy?
The Elgato Facecam is a 1080p webcam that can capture video at 60 frames per second, with additional options of 1080p30, 720p60, 720p30, 540p60, and 540p30. The 24mm-equivalent lens captures a wide angle and has a focus range of 12 to 47 inches, a fixed f/2.4 aperture, and an 82-degree field of view. It does not have a microphone.
Video quality is torn between two extremes, though not necessarily between bright and low light performance. The camera’s autoexposure tends to set the ISO sensitivity quite high in general, around ISO 1200 to 1500 in a well-lit room and over double that in a dark room, very high settings for its image sensor. This means the picture it captures can get very noisy and grainy.
To counter this, it uses a very aggressive noise reduction algorithm that softens or outright destroys fine details. The good news is that you can turn off the noise reduction, and that does bring out much more detail (like my hair and beard, in test recordings). The bad news is that all that fuzz becomes a crackly grain when you do, especially if you have the camera set to its smoothest 60fps frame rate.
Autoexposure works well in most situations, especially when set to center-weighted and you make sure you stay in the middle of the frame. However, I found that I could improve the picture shooting in the dark, illuminated only by my monitor, by manually adjusting shutter speed and sensitivity. Either way, you’re going to have to choose between noise-reducing smudginess or loads of grain in your video.
Obviously, the best option is to set up lighting that suits your shot, with your face well-illuminated but not so harshly that you look like a glowing ghost, and a backdrop that lets you clearly stand out. Elgato even offers key and ring lights with that in mind With these lights (or any other lights that can provide the necessary sort of direct-but-diffused illumination), the question of smudge versus noise disappears, because you can keep ISO sensitivity low. They’re significant additional expenses on top of the camera, though, and other webcams we’ve tested like the Razer Kiyo Pro and Dell UltraSharp Webcam don’t seem to need them as much for clear, relatively noise-free pictures.
BYO Mic
Like the Dell UltraSharp Webcam, the Elgato Facecam doesn’t have a microphone. The logic of this is sound, at least for aspiring streamers and anyone very serious about clear audio. Even the best webcams we’ve tested don’t sound nearly as good as a USB microphone or headset boom mic, and we recommend using either of those devices with any webcam, especially for recording and streaming. It’s still a significant omission for a webcam this expensive, especially since it doesn’t have the benefit of 4K resolution like the UltraSharp.
Less-Than-Impressive for the Price
The Elgato Facecam is an intriguing webcam that ultimately shoots a bit too high for what it achieves. Its 1080p sensor and sharp lens can take in plenty of light and capture fine details in the best of conditions, and the ability to manually adjust exposure is a rare benefit we’ve yet to see in competitors.
Even with manual exposure, though, it practically needs additional lights to get good performance, and any sort of awkward room lighting can result in a high-ISO shot that will either look very grainy or very smudged. With no microphone and a $200 price, the Facecam is tough to recommend against the very sharp 4K Dell UltraSharp Webcam or the excellent jack-of-all-trades Razer Kiyo Pro.
If you want to spend less, the Poly Studio P5 is a strong candidate for a bit more than half the price. You can also connect your own digital camera to your PC for an improved picture, and Elgato even offers its own solution for that with the $130 Cam Link 4K.
