Logitech QuickCam Zoom

It was a great webcam, and worked perfect for me.

I own and have owned several different camera's and this one seems to have worked the best for me.

It set up pretty easily and the software kept me pretty entertained for a while (making stop animations, videos, setting up the motion sensor).

As for the actual performance it works remarkibly well for everything I've used it for:

It takes clear pictures with good colour at 640 resolution.

Makes well focused videos.

Is compatible and works well with all programs that support webcams I've found.

Even works fine when it's completely dark and I'm lit only by the monitor, (infact turning up the brightness makes people think I've actually turned on a light and doesn't sacrifice quality too much either).

The main downside is that recently the piece it swivels on has become a bit loose, and the weight of the cable therefore can make it hard to position.

Although seeing as I've knocked the webcam off of my monitor on to the floor at least a dozen times I can't really blame this on the cams construction.

The Logitech QuickCam Zoom bulb head spins freely on the standard, the thick cable hampers turning the camera in the direction that you want it to look. It will simply turn back.

The image it produces is very unsharp and the color is hilarious. Under TL-light any skin tone turns deep yellow.

The software is extremely poorly written (Mac-version). The sliders have a will of their own, if you try to correct the color and actually the software freezes all the time.

You can purchase iChatUSB which is a modified version which will support (some) USB video cameras, I've seen this working when I send a one-way video stream from me to them while they are NOT sending any data to me, however I have not yet managed to get a 2 way video (webcams at both ends) working with iChatUSB and the Logitech QuickCam Zoom (even though I paid $10 for the iChatUSB software )

Also, BTV is a great app which worked with the QuickCam, again needed some settings tweaks to be able to see anything but it can capture movies which QuickTime can view, and you can then feed those movies into image stacking software without problem if that's what you want to do.

I've attached the webcam to my telescope and while it does need a lot of adjustment it is possible to get some fairly good images of the moon or whatever with it although I wouldn't recommend this camera to anyone wanting to attach it to a telescope there are much better (but expensive) cameras with cmos etc for this kind of thing.

so yeah, for the money I can't complain its a good little camera, I've dropped it twice already too and its still working fine.

The cover piece does come off a little too easily but I think this could be to its advantage, its not going to break the camera, it will just fall off, same goes for the triangular camera mount, it comes off way too easily, but for my purposes that's great because I don't need the base on it while its gaffer-taped to my telescopes eyepiece.

Professional this camera is not, but usable and fun? Definitely it is!