Logitech Quickcam Fusion Review – the Best on the Market, for now

Hello. My name is Howard Chang. I’m the product testing engineer at AmperorDirect.com. This recording is the first in series to document our effort to source a good budget webcam for Video Chat in Skype. Hope it can someday help users like you to pick you right webcam.

Test Setup

First, let me go through the test setup. The webcam under test is connected to the USB 2.0 port on my laptop. The video you are seeing right now is recorded through the software called AMCap. I do not record an actual video chat because the purpose of the test is to try out the webcam. I don’t want the Internet connection speed to affect the results. I setup the video output size as 320 by 240, because this is usually the standard size that an Instant Message program can do for the Video chat. As to the frame rate, I usually set it at 30 frames pre second, if it is available on the webcam. And, I use the Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth headset to record my voice.

In addition, I try to test out the webcam from an end user’s perspective. I know the engineering terms and numbers might sometimes not make any sense to you. Also, some higher resolution webcams I tested actually work not as good as the low resolution one. Therefore, instead of comparing the spec, I think the best way I can help is to go through a set of actions which cover many real use situations such as different light conditions, still image, closed up image and moving object, and give out my opinion at the end of the recording. You can make your own judgment by yourself.

Logitech Quickcam Fusion

The first webcam I’m going to test is the Logitech Quickcam fusion. It is voted or reviewed as the best webcam available on the market in many review sites. You can see how good a good webcam can work and use the result as the reference point for all the other webcams.

Trick to use in the bright light condition

First, I set all the settings of the webcam in default value, and turn the auto exposure and low light boost functions on. I want to see how the webcam works under the bright light condition. So, I have turned on all the lights in my office. There are eight 2800 lumens Florence light bolts in my office, so it is pretty bright, here. Now, you must see the background bright change when I activate the auto exposure adjustment. This webcam tends to over compensate light in a very bright situation. The trick is to turn off the auto exposure setting and adjust the gain manually. Now, what you can see on the screen is more like the actual light condition in my office.

Good capture Quality, Good color

Let us try to look at an object. You see my companion, fury verball? It shows up pretty clear on the screen. You can see it is a furry cute thing with two big eyes. It has a blue body skin and two yellow ears. Basically, there is no problem for users to figure out what the object is on the screen, and the colors are shown up correctly. The ability to truthfully re-create the object on the screen is the reason why people rate this webcam high on the list.

Look at the close-up object

How about we take a closer look at the verball? Here you can see the major short coming of this webcam. It uses a fixed focus lens and therefore cannot display a tiny closed-up object, such as the little words on my business card, clearly.

Fantastic low light boost function

Let me turn off the office light to see how the webcam work in the dark situation. The only available light source is my laptop LCD display. Thanks for the terrific right light technology Logitech offers on this webcam, you can still see me on the screen. And, you can see the furry verball on the screen too. It’s not bad for a dark enviroment like this.

Let me turn on my 75W desk lamp. What you can see here is how accurate the Logitech Quickcam fusion can capture the light reflection from my face and from my shirt. Among all the webcam I tested, this webcam can capture the most realistic color and light on the object.

Conclusion

Here is my opinion about the Logitech quickcam fusion. It is no doubt the best webcam on the market that can capture and recreate the shooting object in the most truthful way. It can also handle the dark enviroment very well, when you turn on the low light boosting function. The only draw back I can see on this webcam: the fixed focus lens, is not that serious when doing video chat. I highly recommend to use the Logitech Quickcam fusion, if you want the most realistic result, can are willing to spend $80~$100 dollars on a webcam.

Click to see how to use Logitech Quickcam Fusion Webcam to do Skype Security application

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