Or they could at least make a webcam add-on with a superior camera, but as far as I know they don't sell anything like that. Hell, make it possible to use an iPhone as a webcam!
So rather than put a crappy camera in the phone, they expanded the volume to fit the camera. I wonder why that isn't something we see with laptops? You could have it bulge out of the back, or have some clever cutout below the trackpad and let it bulge out the front.
The camera in your MBP isn't the Apple Silicon camera that's used in their mobile devices. In the near future, when Apple drops Intel from their entire laptop product line, it is very likely that they'll bring their Apple Silicon cameras from their mobile products to their laptop products. (Yes, there's a 'version zero' MBP with the M1, and a teardown showed that it's literally a drop-and-swap of the motherboard with no other component changes at all. It's literally the "get this out the door so that developers can start finding issues so we can fix them for the masses" model. Hope y'all waited to upgrade if you're not developers for Apple products!)
Everyone assumes that it's only the camera module that needs to be updated, but forgets that it's the image processing hardware circuits that make DSLRs and iOS devices produce such gorgeous images. This, in a nutshell, is why USB webcam makers can't compete: they aren't willing to raise their price by $50 to incorporate a real image processing chip that's able to handle the sensor adequately, and their software is crap because it's bargain-basement and hacked-together to avoid the hardware spend. Imagine if we could purchase Leica and Nikon and Canon webcams, with the ability to use DSLR controls to set them up, and then have them just produce gorgeous photos at any time. So far, Apple is the only webcam maker that's taken it far enough to earn praise. It's really unfortunate.
Apple aren’t actually designing its own sensors, are they? I expected they would be using an off the shelf Sony sensor just like (most) everyone else.
I generally disagree with your premise here. Yes, you can do some pretty amazing things with image processing in software, but you have to have a decent starting point. A good example of this is just how minimal the image processing improvements are in the M1 MacBooks compared to their Intel counterparts — marginally better, but nothing to write home about.
I’m not at all an expert in optics, but I would expect the biggest constraint is the available depth for the lens and camera sensor within the upper clamshell of a laptop vs a phone. It doesn’t seem like it would be a huge difference but an extra millimeter or so makes a huge difference in the size of the sensor that can be used.
The other part is if you have a quality HD or better camera its a huge load to GPU and network which will chew your battery. Lower resolution is actually probably preferred if you could see the alternative.
It's not just resolution though. By every other measure of quality, webcams are mediocre. In the article, even before expanding the video test of the 4 different webcams, it's easy to see how poor some of them are in various ways.
I see this pattern everywhere - the market bifurcating into a) race-to-the-bottom garbage products that are barely crossing the legal threshold of fit for purpose, and are essentially a huge waste of natural resources, and b) quality goods sold to specialists or companies, usually severely overpriced (to cover low volume of sales, and/or just because the market will bear it).
Does it have a name in economics? Are there good ways of preventing this from happening?
This is called market segmentation, and is for some reason considered a good thing. Actually it's the means to extract maximum cash out of customers who want anything more than the bare minimum.
Sears' niche was in the middle. Everything was good, but not great, quality. Products were durable, came with good warranties, and "We Service What We Sell". Sears sold to the middle class, with middle prices. They went bankrupt with that model.
Polarization is used to describe something similar for Job Market. But I am not aware of an exact term for Product. Bad money drives out good could also be used to describe it, or basically Good Enough is the enemy of better and best.
The problem is most people have very little understand of quality. And that is why Marketing matters.
In WebCam, most dont cares much about the quality because you rarely use it. It wasn't until pandemic people were forced to use it more often did they realise how crap it was.
Marketing is about educating customers why your product is better, how you should spend more on it. And Apple is an example, they are exceptionally good at it.
> usually severely overpriced
Most of the time I find that to be false. Not because of the market will bear it, but those market also requires constant innovation so profits are being funnel back into R&D. Generally speaking most "market will bear it" type of product disappear within 5 years when a competitor found they could make something better and cheaper.
I'm coming around to the "b) quality goods sold to specialists or companies, usually severely overpriced", is actually fairly priced. It just seems expensive compared to the junk that is incredibly cheap. I used to be worried about getting ripped off I never bought good quality but now I appreciate it.
Mirror less cameras aren't really overpriced. You can get a good entry level canon (M50) and a quality kit lens for 600$
Or you can get a Sony A6100 and crappier kit lens for 700$
These cameras have significant strong (e.g. aps-c sensor size) capabilities not found in anything except mirrorless and DSLR cameras. Seems not to be overpriced to me.
Overpriced is like what nvidia does to the quattro cards...
I'd be willing to pay for a good webcam, but I'm not willing to plug something as bulky and heavy as a mirrorless camera to my monitor, let alone to my laptop. I don't think that's a weird stance to have.
0. People who don't want a web cam on their computer at all.
I know a lot of people who have put tape over their webcam. In fact that is the policy of several departments where I work. Some people use their web cams, but a large number of people I work with never use theirs.
By using a cheap web cam manufactures can cover 1 without having to make a model without a webcam for those who don't want it - this would be more expensive than shipping a piece of tape to cover it just because they would need to design a second case and have a new part number.
I spend a lot of time on video calls every day, and wanted to take advantage of my iPhone camera. I had tried Epoccam and it was buggy, and broke between releases of Zoom or didn’t work in Slack calls. Screwing around with OBS was time consuming and pinned my fans.
Reincubate Camo has been a pleasure to use over the last 3 months, and has never let me down. Having good image quality on video calls is on par with wearing a clean shirt or showering before in person meetings. You can get by without it, but you make a much better impression if you step your game up a little bit.
One big plus of Camo is that it will also patch software like Slack so that it works with virtual cameras at all.
Yeah, Camo is probably the best out there at the moment.
But... (there's always a but)
1. they had a bug with Mojave which made it disconnect, especially with Zoom calls with many people (I imagine CPU issue?)
2. There's no way to control / switch off the camera from the app. The phone is still on with the app open and camera is working
3. I've got a nice holder, and used a dedicated older phone, but still it was a hassle, because you want to use the back facing camera -- to avoid seeing yourself. And then starting the app is effectively "behind" the camera. It's awkward.
4. They charge a yearly subscription fee. I can understand why, but in the long run I'm not sure it works out in their customer's favour financially.
I eventually gave up and got a Logitech Brio. So far I'm pretty happy.
DroidCam works for my requirements: http://www.dev47apps.com .. it installs a virtual webcam and microphone on Windows, and transmits the video and audio from the phone camera/microphone.
I also noticed fairly early on, that phone cameras were improving by leaps and bounds, while laptop webcams and USB webcams seemed to be at a standstill, image-quality wise.
I don't know why that is, but even Apple would seemingly rather shave 50 cents off the BOM by speccing a 720p Facetime camera in their $3000 Macbook Pros, and trying to make up the difference with software, like with the new M1 Macs that have better image quality using the same 720p webcam.
For my desktop I've taken to using an action camera, since software that supports using Android phones as webcams seemed to not be so good when I looked. It plugs in via USB, is cheap, has auto-focus and supports a wider angle of view than most webcams. Good for group calls. One can always zoom in with software.
> even Apple would seemingly rather shave 50 cents off the BOM by speccing a 720p Facetime camera in their $3000 Macbook Pros
The reason I've heard is that the macbook display assembly simply doesn't have the depth to house a decent camera. The camera bump in phones exists for a reason - and phones are already way fatter than macbook displays.
I've got a late 2019 iMac, and it's got the same piece-of-shit camera that the MBPs do. I think (without looking it up) recent iMacs bumped the specs. It is one of my few disappointments with this machine. OTOH, my workplace doesn't use cameras on online meetings. My musical jam group does, though. And I paid about $3K for this machine, so it shouldn't even be a discussion.
I also thought about this but then look at the iPad and iPhone Facetime cameras. They offer much better image quality than Macbook webcams. There are a few ways to offer "rear camera" quality on Macbooks, like having a little bump sticking out from the back. I don't think that's what people are asking for though. They just want a webcam that's as good as the webcam in their phone.
Also this doesn't answer the question of why USB webcams are so terrible. They have tons of room.
Thats the same story someone I know that works at Apple told me. They would like to put a better camera in there as much as we would like one, but its not economical at the moment.
Is the image quality any better on iMac? At the very least on expensive iMac Pro? If not, the issue is not physical limitations of Macbook, it's most likely cost.
The display frame has plenty of space for a phone-type camera sensor of any resolution, it's just a flat CMOS. Even a really big phone sensor is only 8x6x3mm
A good lens is more difficult to fit in the Z-dimension but that doesn't constrain the resolution of the sensor. A small bump in the bezel and a corresponding recess in the base would allow a better design of lens.
As smartphones essentially replaced point and shoot cameras, image quality became a major selling point. In fact, for many people, that's the only reason for getting a modern, high-end phone.
Laptop cameras are typically used only for the occasional video chat, with so much compression on the line that the image looks like crap anyways. And before 2020, I'm quite sure most laptops didn't see their webcam used even once.
Maybe for the following years, now that people realized that their laptop webcam is not just a place to put a sticker on, manufacturers will put on something better.
In my view, phone cameras are used for photography, in addition to conferencing. So they need to be better quality for that use. Nobody takes pictures of their outdoor adventure, or an image of a document, with a laptop camera.
Well, some people do. My kids were in the youth orchestra, and they had to issue a rule that parents are not allowed to hold an iPad up in the air for the entire duration of the concert.
That's what I thought recently about the MacBook Camera. I have switched to Mac Mini M1 and bought Logitech StreamCam for ~£150. It sucks in every possible way: focus does not work properly in any conditions except natural daylight, CPU expensive, additional meaningless software for basic features, etc.
Now, I miss the MacBook camera. Yes, it is 720p, but do I need more for my meetings? Nope. It just works. The quality is acceptable, no problems with any applications/web-tools, plays well with system resources, etc. If we are talking about "Zoom me" cameras, I would prefer the MacBook's one. If we are talking about YouTube streamers, etc., then it is a bit different area, and yes, MacBook's camera will not help with this.
Hmmh, I couldn't care less about webcams. I'm not that pretty and not all that eager to share the interior of my dwelling. I do however care about sound quality. With my accent and mumbling I need all the help I can get. Others reported that the camera in their phone beats most webcams, but what about the microphone(-array)? The sound quality of phablets hasn't quite won me over. Is there anything better available, short of equipment for professional musicians?
I'm an amateur musician with a USB audio interface, several hundred dollars worth of microphones (though for office work, it's just the Shure SM27 condenser), and wired set of good headphones. And it is glorious. Until everyone got used to it, I got consistent compliments on the sound quality. You'll sound like a radio DJ. Because everything is wired, latency is minimal and a lot less of "okay, go head. No, go ahead..."
Now, that's a lot of money and fiddling. Bang-for-the-buck IMO is the already-mentioned Blue Yeti, along with a wired set of headphones (anything, just wired, and not coming out of the speakers to take the load off the DSP feedback cancelling). So, prolly $150 total? Point being, if you use just a wired mic and headphones of any quality, you're loads ahead in sound quality of those using the built-in mic and speakers on their laptop (or worse, their phone).
I was under the impression that dynamic microphones are much more suitable for non-studio settings, where echoes and other noises happen, as well as for regular speech, not music (and that they are actually used on radio stations). And XLR dynamic ones can be connected to a computer even with just an XLR-to-TRRS cable, not requiring phantom power. Or a proper audio interface if one wishes to, not something built into a microphone. Do you have any experience with those, and/or reasons to prefer condenser microphones for speech?
I always thought a headset is better than external mike as you can move around and dont get background noise. Is there a reason not to use a headset mic?
Half my team use speakerphones and it drives me nuts.
How do you connect all this to the computer? A typical PC has a single TRSS analog socket.
Do you use some USB interface that accept a separate microphone and a separate headphones jacks? If you do, any advice on what to look for and what to avoid?
The Yeti is what I have. It's a condenser microphone. Condenser microphones generally are more sensitive to quiet sounds and pick up range a bit better, but that means they also pick up _everything_ else much better. That's great if you're in a sound studio, but most of us are not.
You'll make your life easiest if you get clean audio in _before_ you start trying to do further processing to clean it up.
I already had the Yeti on hand, and it was a couple days of tweaking and tuning to get to the point where it will pick up my voice from 6-8" away clearly (so it's not directly in front of my face on camera) but not also transmitting the pitter-patter of every raindrop on the sidewalk outside.
If you're looking for a mic just for audio/video calls, I'd look towards a dynamic mic. Something like the Audio-Technica AT2005 ($80) is generally pretty well reviewed, is 2/3 the price of the Yeti, and still includes a built-in ADC so you can just plug it in via USB and call the job done (don't need to add a bunch of input boxes/etc).
I have heard this as well so I have got one. To my big surprise people on video calls can not tell the difference whether I am using the snowball mic or the one built in the webcam.
I think it's pretty important for professional conversations. We communicate an enormous amount of information through our facial expressions and body language and seeing the person who is speaking is important for understanding their tone correctly. Have you ever been in a video call where one person isn't on camera? It's really weird and awkward.
I HIGHLY recommend getting a 10$ boom-arm from amazon and using that to get the microphone closer to your face. I have this setup and my coworkers say I sound like a radio host because the quality is so good.
All for 115$... single best investment I made in lockdown.
I use a SteelSeries Arctis wireless (2.4Ghz!!) headset. Makes a huge difference for group calls. Also, 2.4G headsets have a HUGE range. I can go from my office, outside for a smoke or anywhere in the house. I really like them!
When I wasn't able to purchase a webcam (for a reasonable amount) at the beginning of the lockdown, I started using my Pixel 3 with DroidCam[1].
My video quality is consistently the best in all the meetings I'm in, so I can really recommend using your phone.
I stream the video over adb myself, to make sure I don't drain the battery too much and to keep everything wired.
I can confirm this as my colleagues have mentioned the quality difference between my feed (samsung tablet) and their webcams. I used a couple different webcam apps orginially but DroidCam was the best IMO.
Yes, this is what I used to to, but it has drawbacks.
If you only join from your phone, you can't really see other participants (unless you use your front cam, and in that case your screen is obviously still very small) and you won't be able to screen share.
If you join on both, you will be in the meeting twice (which can look weird to other people).
In my case, I want to use a dedicated microphone, not my phone's microphone that might be blocked by the arm that is holding it in place.
That results in a weird AV delay since the audio is coming from a different user in the call (and it means your video is not highlighted when you speak).
In short - my current setup hides the implementation details and makes it all work transparently without bothering people I'm in a call with.
My first job straight out of university was at Reincubate. I thought I'd share my experience because Reincubate is a small company - you could count us with your fingers when I joined.
It was a fun place to work with nerf guns and rubber balls to throw at each other. You learnt to keep your computer locked the "fun" way. We always went for a team lunch on Fridays - something that I've missed ever since. I enjoyed coming into work every day because of the people.
The favourite highlight of my entire career was there, back in 2015. The whole team of engineers (~6ish) worked together to figure out how to decrypt iOS 9 beta backups as Apple had changed the encryption system. Everyone contributed in some way and I delved into using a disassembler, IDA Pro, from zero prior experience armed with a textbook. It took a whole week from the beta being released, and I believe we were the first (public) company to do it.
The values of the company, as described on the website, have changed, but what they say now still matches up with my time there.
Switching to something more relevant to this article. I was looking for a webcam a couple of months ago for quite a while before it also hit me that my iPhone camera was actually damn good. Since then I've been connecting to Zoom twice (from my phone for the video, and my computer for the audio). It's not a great experience but I never really looked into the "random" apps that could create a virtual camera. Well Reincubate is not random to me and it looks like there's a beta version of Camo for Windows, so I don't really have an excuse :)
I use OBS Studio's output as virtual camera - and among the inputs I use cheap old Android tablets with DroidCam OBS over IP on Wi-Fi... They cost less than a USB webcam and deliver much better image quality.
Also, lighting. A couple of 5500 Kelvin Led lights on a clip mount, with good color rendition won't dent the budget but they will make even cheap webcams perform much better - color, frame rate, aperture. A softbox is wonderful but I don't have space for that, so I aim the light at the white wall - good enough substitute !
Readit News
Yet, the camera in my $2000 Macbook Pro? Remarkably worse than even the worse external webcam.
If they can throw an amazing camera in a phone, why can't they put a decent one in a laptop?
Everyone assumes that it's only the camera module that needs to be updated, but forgets that it's the image processing hardware circuits that make DSLRs and iOS devices produce such gorgeous images. This, in a nutshell, is why USB webcam makers can't compete: they aren't willing to raise their price by $50 to incorporate a real image processing chip that's able to handle the sensor adequately, and their software is crap because it's bargain-basement and hacked-together to avoid the hardware spend. Imagine if we could purchase Leica and Nikon and Canon webcams, with the ability to use DSLR controls to set them up, and then have them just produce gorgeous photos at any time. So far, Apple is the only webcam maker that's taken it far enough to earn praise. It's really unfortunate.
I generally disagree with your premise here. Yes, you can do some pretty amazing things with image processing in software, but you have to have a decent starting point. A good example of this is just how minimal the image processing improvements are in the M1 MacBooks compared to their Intel counterparts — marginally better, but nothing to write home about.
I’m not at all an expert in optics, but I would expect the biggest constraint is the available depth for the lens and camera sensor within the upper clamshell of a laptop vs a phone. It doesn’t seem like it would be a huge difference but an extra millimeter or so makes a huge difference in the size of the sensor that can be used.
Lots of points. Big one being that the market is bifurcated into:
1. People who just want the minimum as cheap as possible.
2. People willing to pay enough to buy a mirrorless photo camera and plug it in as a web cam when they need it.
Does it have a name in economics? Are there good ways of preventing this from happening?
Sears' niche was in the middle. Everything was good, but not great, quality. Products were durable, came with good warranties, and "We Service What We Sell". Sears sold to the middle class, with middle prices. They went bankrupt with that model.
The problem is most people have very little understand of quality. And that is why Marketing matters.
In WebCam, most dont cares much about the quality because you rarely use it. It wasn't until pandemic people were forced to use it more often did they realise how crap it was.
Marketing is about educating customers why your product is better, how you should spend more on it. And Apple is an example, they are exceptionally good at it.
> usually severely overpriced
Most of the time I find that to be false. Not because of the market will bear it, but those market also requires constant innovation so profits are being funnel back into R&D. Generally speaking most "market will bear it" type of product disappear within 5 years when a competitor found they could make something better and cheaper.
Or you can get a Sony A6100 and crappier kit lens for 700$
These cameras have significant strong (e.g. aps-c sensor size) capabilities not found in anything except mirrorless and DSLR cameras. Seems not to be overpriced to me.
Overpriced is like what nvidia does to the quattro cards...
Dead Comment
The webcams tested in TFA go up to $200 though, that's well into low-end smartphone.
I know a lot of people who have put tape over their webcam. In fact that is the policy of several departments where I work. Some people use their web cams, but a large number of people I work with never use theirs.
By using a cheap web cam manufactures can cover 1 without having to make a model without a webcam for those who don't want it - this would be more expensive than shipping a piece of tape to cover it just because they would need to design a second case and have a new part number.
Yeap. I feel like this is the way to go.
Reincubate Camo has been a pleasure to use over the last 3 months, and has never let me down. Having good image quality on video calls is on par with wearing a clean shirt or showering before in person meetings. You can get by without it, but you make a much better impression if you step your game up a little bit.
One big plus of Camo is that it will also patch software like Slack so that it works with virtual cameras at all.
But... (there's always a but)
1. they had a bug with Mojave which made it disconnect, especially with Zoom calls with many people (I imagine CPU issue?)
2. There's no way to control / switch off the camera from the app. The phone is still on with the app open and camera is working
3. I've got a nice holder, and used a dedicated older phone, but still it was a hassle, because you want to use the back facing camera -- to avoid seeing yourself. And then starting the app is effectively "behind" the camera. It's awkward.
4. They charge a yearly subscription fee. I can understand why, but in the long run I'm not sure it works out in their customer's favour financially.
I eventually gave up and got a Logitech Brio. So far I'm pretty happy.
In the end I ponied up for Logitech C920, I think it's worth the money rather than fussing with a phone, apps, etc..
https://twitter.com/reincubate/status/1349768570591457281?s=...
(using USB connection not wifi; there is a bit of lag but works OK)
I don't know why that is, but even Apple would seemingly rather shave 50 cents off the BOM by speccing a 720p Facetime camera in their $3000 Macbook Pros, and trying to make up the difference with software, like with the new M1 Macs that have better image quality using the same 720p webcam.
For my desktop I've taken to using an action camera, since software that supports using Android phones as webcams seemed to not be so good when I looked. It plugs in via USB, is cheap, has auto-focus and supports a wider angle of view than most webcams. Good for group calls. One can always zoom in with software.
The reason I've heard is that the macbook display assembly simply doesn't have the depth to house a decent camera. The camera bump in phones exists for a reason - and phones are already way fatter than macbook displays.
I have no idea if thats true though.
Also this doesn't answer the question of why USB webcams are so terrible. They have tons of room.
Also Apple: We can't give you a better camera because we gave you the thinnest laptop evar!
"We think you're gonna love it!"
A good lens is more difficult to fit in the Z-dimension but that doesn't constrain the resolution of the sensor. A small bump in the bezel and a corresponding recess in the base would allow a better design of lens.
Laptop cameras are typically used only for the occasional video chat, with so much compression on the line that the image looks like crap anyways. And before 2020, I'm quite sure most laptops didn't see their webcam used even once.
Maybe for the following years, now that people realized that their laptop webcam is not just a place to put a sticker on, manufacturers will put on something better.
Well, some people do. My kids were in the youth orchestra, and they had to issue a rule that parents are not allowed to hold an iPad up in the air for the entire duration of the concert.
Now, that's a lot of money and fiddling. Bang-for-the-buck IMO is the already-mentioned Blue Yeti, along with a wired set of headphones (anything, just wired, and not coming out of the speakers to take the load off the DSP feedback cancelling). So, prolly $150 total? Point being, if you use just a wired mic and headphones of any quality, you're loads ahead in sound quality of those using the built-in mic and speakers on their laptop (or worse, their phone).
Half my team use speakerphones and it drives me nuts.
Do you use some USB interface that accept a separate microphone and a separate headphones jacks? If you do, any advice on what to look for and what to avoid?
https://www.bluemic.com/en-us/products/yeti/
The Yeti is what I have. It's a condenser microphone. Condenser microphones generally are more sensitive to quiet sounds and pick up range a bit better, but that means they also pick up _everything_ else much better. That's great if you're in a sound studio, but most of us are not.
You'll make your life easiest if you get clean audio in _before_ you start trying to do further processing to clean it up.
I already had the Yeti on hand, and it was a couple days of tweaking and tuning to get to the point where it will pick up my voice from 6-8" away clearly (so it's not directly in front of my face on camera) but not also transmitting the pitter-patter of every raindrop on the sidewalk outside.
If you're looking for a mic just for audio/video calls, I'd look towards a dynamic mic. Something like the Audio-Technica AT2005 ($80) is generally pretty well reviewed, is 2/3 the price of the Yeti, and still includes a built-in ADC so you can just plug it in via USB and call the job done (don't need to add a bunch of input boxes/etc).
I HIGHLY recommend getting a 10$ boom-arm from amazon and using that to get the microphone closer to your face. I have this setup and my coworkers say I sound like a radio host because the quality is so good.
All for 115$... single best investment I made in lockdown.
I use a SteelSeries Arctis wireless (2.4Ghz!!) headset. Makes a huge difference for group calls. Also, 2.4G headsets have a HUGE range. I can go from my office, outside for a smoke or anywhere in the house. I really like them!
I stream the video over adb myself, to make sure I don't drain the battery too much and to keep everything wired.
[1]: https://www.dev47apps.com/
If you only join from your phone, you can't really see other participants (unless you use your front cam, and in that case your screen is obviously still very small) and you won't be able to screen share.
If you join on both, you will be in the meeting twice (which can look weird to other people). In my case, I want to use a dedicated microphone, not my phone's microphone that might be blocked by the arm that is holding it in place. That results in a weird AV delay since the audio is coming from a different user in the call (and it means your video is not highlighted when you speak).
In short - my current setup hides the implementation details and makes it all work transparently without bothering people I'm in a call with.
[1]: https://reincubate.com/camo/
It was a fun place to work with nerf guns and rubber balls to throw at each other. You learnt to keep your computer locked the "fun" way. We always went for a team lunch on Fridays - something that I've missed ever since. I enjoyed coming into work every day because of the people.
The favourite highlight of my entire career was there, back in 2015. The whole team of engineers (~6ish) worked together to figure out how to decrypt iOS 9 beta backups as Apple had changed the encryption system. Everyone contributed in some way and I delved into using a disassembler, IDA Pro, from zero prior experience armed with a textbook. It took a whole week from the beta being released, and I believe we were the first (public) company to do it.
The values of the company, as described on the website, have changed, but what they say now still matches up with my time there.
Switching to something more relevant to this article. I was looking for a webcam a couple of months ago for quite a while before it also hit me that my iPhone camera was actually damn good. Since then I've been connecting to Zoom twice (from my phone for the video, and my computer for the audio). It's not a great experience but I never really looked into the "random" apps that could create a virtual camera. Well Reincubate is not random to me and it looks like there's a beta version of Camo for Windows, so I don't really have an excuse :)
Also, lighting. A couple of 5500 Kelvin Led lights on a clip mount, with good color rendition won't dent the budget but they will make even cheap webcams perform much better - color, frame rate, aperture. A softbox is wonderful but I don't have space for that, so I aim the light at the white wall - good enough substitute !