Elgato Facecam Pro

Through COVID-19, we saw a rather significant increase in the percentage of individuals in the labour market who simply wanted to work from home more, and this combines seamlessly with an increase in live streamers on Twitch, and generally just creative souls wanting to communicate to an audience.

All of this has fuelled huge growth in the webcam market, and if you're serious about either your work, your hobby or somewhere in between, Elgato offers perhaps the wildest and most expensive webcam yet. It's called Facecam Pro, and it costs $299, which puts it at the same price point as Razer's expensive Kiyo Pro Ultra at just over $299.

At that price, Elgato simply has to be able to serve the whole package, so does it? The first thing that might be important to realise here is that the Facecam Pro is gigantic. If you imagine the head of BD-1, you know, the droid from the Star Wars Jedi series, you have a good idea of what it looks like. It's not particularly subtle, despite being tastefully designed. However, the mounting itself is seamless via a simple USB-C cable, and even though it weighs a good 240 grams, it doesn't really matter once it's on top of a monitor or via the classic ¼" thread.

So why is it so big? Well, firstly, it's because the lens itself is gigantic. It's a 21mm full-frame equivalent f/2.0 aperture lens that shoots at 90 degrees. The sensor itself is a Sony Starvis CMOS, so performance in challenging lighting conditions is also assured, and it's the only webcam (apparently) that can shoot at 4K/60fps with ease.

It looks good, let's start by saying that. However, you'll need to be willing to use Elgato's Camera Hub to fiddle with the settings. Facecam Pro shoots at 90 degrees but needs you to digitally zoom in closer to your face to make sure you're always in focus. You need to do this because there's no tracking here - Facecam Pro can't find your face and maintain focus on yourself if you move, so a tighter FOV is almost necessary. You'll also have to look at white balance and colour calibration yourself, as the automatic tools just don't really work.

Another problem is that there's no microphone. Now, it's fair to say that most people considering investing in a Facecam Pro can either add a studio microphone themselves or just use a headset, and that's fair enough, but much cheaper equivalents have inbuilt microphones, and with the device itself being so massive, there's just no excuse not to offer this at this price point.

However, it must be said that Elgato has built a rock-solid ecosystem of products that work brilliantly together. The wider FOV does mean you sacrifice a little quality, but few competing products offer this kind of panning - there's more freedom to play with your subject, especially if you're willing to tinker.

The Elgato Facecam Pro isn't a failure, but neither is it instantly better than cheaper competitors to justify its high price tag. You're certainly not getting a bad webcam, quite the contrary, but at the end of the day, you should get a little more.