Elgato Facecam Review: Built for Streamers, Not Video Calls

Watch enough stream VODs and you'll spot it: that brief soft blur as the camera hunts for focus after someone walks behind the streamer. It's a small thing, and it happens on nearly every autofocus webcam.

The Elgato Facecam skips autofocus entirely. At $129.99, it locks focus at a fixed distance and never searches for it again.

That single decision, plus an uncompressed 1080p/60fps signal and a Sony STARVIS sensor built for dim, RGB-lit rooms, is why it earns a 9.0 editorial score here.

Full manual control over exposure, white balance, sharpness, and saturation through Elgato's Camera Hub means you set your look once and it stays put, stream after stream.

The Case for Fixed Focus

Autofocus hunting is the most common quality complaint in streaming webcam footage. The camera loses focus — often when you move, when someone passes behind you, or when the exposure changes — and the image blurs briefly while the camera searches for the focus point.

Fixed focus eliminates this by setting focus at a fixed distance and never adjusting it. The Facecam's fixed focus is calibrated at approximately 1 meter (roughly standard seated-at-desk distance). If you sit at approximately 60-100cm from the camera, the image is sharp and never blurs.

If you move closer or further, the image becomes soft. This is a reasonable trade for streaming setups where you sit in a consistent position.

Uncompressed Output

Most webcams compress video before sending it over USB — they apply their own compression to fit within USB bandwidth limits. The compression introduces artifacts visible in dark areas, fine textures (hair, fabric), and rapid motion.

The Facecam sends uncompressed video over USB 3.0. OBS receives a clean signal and applies its own encoding (H.264, NVENC, etc.) without working from an already-compressed source.

The practical difference: fine details in hair, fabric, and background textures are better preserved in the final stream. The improvement is visible in direct comparison and most noticeable in 1080p output where viewers are scrutinizing quality.

Elgato Camera Hub

Camera Hub is Elgato's desktop application for the Facecam. It provides full manual control over:

• Exposure: shutter speed and ISO independently
• Gain: amplification level (relevant for low-light compensation)
• White balance: Kelvin value selection rather than preset categories
• Sharpness: 0-100 scale
• Saturation: useful for matching skin tone to your stream's color profile
• Denoise: reduces sensor noise in low-light

Settings saved in Camera Hub persist when the camera is disconnected and reconnected. The application needs to launch before OBS to apply settings to the active camera session — if OBS opens first, Camera Hub cannot modify the camera while OBS has exclusive access.

Low Light Performance

The Sony STARVIS sensor in the Facecam was originally designed for security camera applications requiring sensitivity in very low ambient light. In a gaming setup with RGB lighting, dim room lighting, and a bright monitor as the main light source, the STARVIS handles the mixed exposure better than sensors designed for more controlled conditions.

Compared to the Logitech C920's sensor in a dim gaming room: the Facecam produces noticeably less noise, more natural skin tone rendering, and better preservation of detail in shadowed areas.

Compared to the Razer Kiyo Pro (which also uses a STARVIS sensor): performance is similar. The Kiyo Pro adds HDR; the Facecam adds fixed focus and uncompressed output.

Placement and Mount

The Facecam uses a monitor clip and 1/4-20 tripod thread. The clip works on monitors 4-32mm thick. For ultrawide curved monitors, the clip can be unstable — a tabletop tripod with a 1/4-20 mount provides better stability.

The recommended placement is above the monitor, slightly above eye level, aimed slightly downward. This produces the most natural viewing angle for call and streaming recipients. Side mounting or below-monitor placement creates unflattering angles regardless of camera quality.

What It Is Not

The Facecam is not ideal for:

Video calls with variable lighting: no HDR, and the fixed focus cannot adapt to unusual distances. The Brio 4K handles variable call conditions better.

Far-distance use: fixed focus at approximately 1 meter means distance shooting (across a large desk or room) produces soft results.

4K recording: 1080p maximum. If local 4K recording is a requirement, the Brio 4K is the webcam choice; alternatively, a mirrorless camera with a capture card delivers better quality than either webcam.

OBS Integration

The Facecam appears in OBS as a Video Capture Device. Select it as the source, set resolution to 1920x1080 at 60fps, and color format to RAW (uncompressed).

For background removal with the Facecam: NVIDIA Broadcast's background removal quality is better than OBS's built-in filter for most inputs. If you have an RTX GPU, route the Facecam through Broadcast as a virtual camera before OBS.

For color correction in OBS: Elgato Camera Hub handles white balance and saturation before the signal reaches OBS. Use Camera Hub for base color correction and OBS's LUT filter for creative color grading if desired.