Elgato Facecam

Manual exposure controls ; Good picture with the right lighting

Expensive ; Video suffers in difficult lighting ; No microphone

The Elgato Facecam is an ambitious webcam that has no microphone, but offers the unique benefit of manual exposure control. You'll need to take time to set up good studio lighting for the best results.

Very easy-to-use software ; Fantastic encoding options ; A smart hardware design ; Generally accurate auto settings

Reddish hues in all scenarios ; Lack of HDR and a wider-angle option ; Weak integration with other Elgato products ; Missing hue control in software

For my formal webcam tests I captured four 1080p, 60Hz signals fed into a 4K —each taking up a corner of the frame—and ran through some lighting/setting tests. The webcams I used against the Elgato FaceCam were the , AverMedia PW513, and Logitech...

1080p, 60 fps video ; Included privacy cover ; Useful companion app ; Sturdy design

No 4K or microphone ; Photos gets noisy ; Included cable is too short ; Expensive

Audio and video tech is getting more compact (and affordable!) with every passing year, and the Elgato Facecam is a great example of high-end optics in a tidy package. Thanks to cutting-edge specs, top-tier performance, and a useful software package to...

Excellent uncompressed image quality.

Pricey.

The uncompressed 60fps 1080p feed is sharp, colours are represented well and the field of view is nice and wide, the software is absolutely brilliant, being able to have ultimate control over every aspect of the camera and to save settings internally...

Solid 1080p 60 FPS camera ; Decent app with good adjustment options, and onboard memory ; Good design with privacy shield and activation light

App is bare bones, missing features like background blur ; Quite expensive vs. comparable competing options

Bottom line: The Facecam is a solid first offering from Elgato. The sensor is decent and the construction is solid, with great latency and refresh rates for those with ambient lighting. The app needs a lot of work and feature improvements if it is to...

Professional-grade sensor ; Impressive controls ; Crisp, clean image

Fussy lens cap ; No built-in mic

The product experts at

+ Strong Image Quality ; + App shows ISO levels ; + Fixed Focus Lens

- Finicky Software ; - No HDR or 4K ; - Requires USB 3.0

The Elgato Facecam has the perfect feature set for its target audience, but that narrow focus leaves it lacking for everyone else.