Logitech QuickCam Zoom Review

Good Points
Small, built in microphone, 640x480 res ok in daylight but can need some settings tweaks, mine kept making everything blue-tinted very odd.

Bad Points
Drivers mentioned for OSX actually make the camera only work with Yahoo Chat on OSX (which is very rubbish video chat uber-jerky aim is much better) , it doesn't work with Aim OOTB and it doesn't have a preference pane in osx to configure the camera or anything. All software to make this camera do anything in OSX needs to be purchased separately. The only OSX support that the logo on the box refers to is that Yahoo Messenger is supported.

If you want anything else to use it on osx some extra work is probably required.

General Comments
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!