Bulbs & Fittings Ideas

Trust me, you don’t want to waste your money on a cheap webcam. The price for this item might seem a little expensive for a webcam, but you get what you pay for: it’s much better quality, design, smooth video, and extra features.

The Quickcam Fusion uses a CMOS sensor, whereas the Quickcam Pro 5000 uses CCD. Fusion does use a higher CMOS sensor compared to low-end webcams, BUT low quality webcams also still use CMOS technology. Most will argue CCD as being better than CMOS. Granted, the results also show (read on further).

– The Quickcam Fusion can tilt 90 degrees back, but it can’t tilt forward AND it CANNOT swivel from side to side.
– The Quickcam Pro 5000 can tilt 45 degrees up, about 10 degrees down, AND 360 degrees to the sides. The Quickcam Pro 5000 wins in terms of mobility.

The rubber tail is much more flexible on the Quickcam Pro 5000. You can straighten the tail to lay flat on a desk or on top of a CRT monitor; or bend to put it on your LCD monitor. Unlike the Quickcam Pro 4000, the 5000 does not come with a second base to attach; I mean, there’s really no need for it since you can just adjust the tail.

If you plan on taking lots of STILL pictures with the webcam, then the Fusion would be a better choice. The Quickcam Fusion is true 1.3 mega pixel; whereas the Quickcam Pro 5000 is 1.3 mega pixel INTERPOLATED — meaning it is software enhanced to create a high resolution still picture. However, the whole point of a webcam is for video, anyway; they have digital cameras for taking still pictures. So, in terms of video, the Quickcam Pro 5000, overall, has a clearer video with more vibrant colors. However, bright light will look washed out in white. The Fusion doesn’t do a good job with fast motion, as it will blur — but it does, however, do a better job in low light conditions.

The Logitech Pro 5000 has a wide lens of 63 degrees; the Fusion has a wider lens of 78 degrees. If you plan on using the webcam with lots of members, then the Fusion would probably do a better job of fitting everyone on the screen; however, if you plan to use it alone more often, the Logitech Pro 5000 would be a better choice.

With the Logitech’s top-line webcams — Logitech Quickcam Pro 5000, Quickcam Fusion, and Quickcam Orbit — includes the Logitech Video Effects. With only those Logitech webcams, you can add cool special effects on yourself, like glasses or gas mask, while you chat with your friends. Like the face tracking feature — as freaky as this may sound — it will try to recognize the position of your eyes, nose and mouth and add those special effects on you. I really like this feature and it makes chatting a lot more fun. However, don’t expect it to work 100% perfectly: moving around too much would make the special effects disappear and the camera would need to detect your face again; it can be a pain for many, especially when it complains that there isn’t enough light to detect. It’ll probably work better for people with distinct big eyes and lips. I am Asian but it still worked for me. (Um, whatever that means.) Just remember not to move around too much. You can also choose different avatars, such as a 3D shark, that will follow your movements. The Logitech Video Effects is an extra feature, which some may not really appreciate, but when it works, trust me, it is a lot of fun. You can download more video effects from Logitech’s website. Along with the video effects, you can also record video at 640×480 and save it as a (somewhat) compressed AVI.

You can adjust the exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness, white balance, gamma, mirror horizontal/vertical, etc. The microphone is located above the green LED on the webcam, and it does a really good job picking up sound.

If you prefer a more modern look then you’d probably lean more towards the Fusion, whereas the Quickcam Pro still has the early round eye-ball webcam 1.0 look. But personally, I like the black finish and silver rings on the Pro 5000; it goes well with my black monitor. However, what’s more important is the video performance. Overall, the Quickcam Pro 5000 is one of the best webcams out there today. Don’t settle for a cheap webcam – it’s just a waste of money.

IMPORTANT: The software CD inside the package might be outdated (most likely), so don’t use it if it is. Just download the latest from Logitech’s website. And make sure you install the software first, before connecting the camera, to avoid any further issues.

I’ve used this webcam with 3 different people so far, and they all report good image quality. One person said that, when the video is viewed full screen, the picture quality is almost as good as a standard definition TV. From my perspective, I could only judge the picture quality of the other parties, and they were pretty poor, probably because they used cheap webcams that were a few years old.

I have used 2 different instant messaging software, MSN and Skype 2.0 beta. While the picture qualities were similar, Skype had significantly better frame rate, and hence motion was not as jerky. However, neither system even came close to 30 frames/sec.

One tip I have is that if your room is dark or you have strong backlighting, you should switch on the low light setting in the software.

I’ve tried several different webcams, and the Logitech 5000 by far has the best image. Its especially good under low light conditions, where the other cameras I tried didn’t work very well. I use the 5000 regularly for videoconferencing via Skype, and it works very well with this service.

The software, however, is downright awful. When trying to set the audio, for instance, the whole system will freeze up completely. I couldn’t kill the process at all, and I couldn’t even reboot – I had to physically hit the power switch on the computer to restart it. As a programmer, I can tell you that it takes some pretty bad coding to completely lock up a system like that. As a workaround, I had to change the settings on my microphone manually in windows Control Panel and then never ever touch the Logitech camera settings program.

In scanning the web, I’ve noticed that many other users have had similar problems with their Logitech software. Its a shame that Logitech would release such a nice piece of hardware with such horrible software. So, if you buy this product, cross your fingers that their software will work with your system.