Elgato Facecam MK.2

Verdict

The Elgato Facecam MK.2 is an excellent webcam for streaming. It offers smooth output with good detail in well-lit conditions, as well as some convenient mounting and clever software. Its low light output may not be the best, but this is a solid webcam overall.

Introduction

The Elgato Facecam MK.2, as the name suggests, is the Corsair-owned brand’s second-generation webcam designed for streaming and content creation.

They’ve developed a strong reputation for class-leading kit in this particular area, but face stiff competition from other webcams in the same area such as the Logitech StreamCam and HP 960 4K Streaming Webcam.

Priced at £149.99/$149.99/€149.99, this is a well-priced option against that competition as a 1080p/60fps webcam, but whether Elgato’s latest option is enough to be one of the best webcams we’ve tested is a different story. I’ve been testing it to find out how it stacks up.

Design and Features

• Well-built plastic chassis
• Easy to mount
• Clever software controls

The Elgato Facecam MK.2 offers similar looks to its predecessor, with a rectangular frame that looks good atop my monitor. It’s entirely plastic in construction, but feels solid in hand, justifying its cost, and also features an integrated privacy shutter that slides across the lens. It also features a small Elgato logo on the top side, and ‘Facecam’ emblazoned across the right hand side of the chassis While it may lack the additional flair of Logitech’s StreamCam, this is still a professional-looking webcam.

Mounting the Facecam MK.2 is also easy, with the clip that’s attached to the base of the webcam. I had no trouble fitting it to my MSI monitor, while it was also simple to point the webcam down to make up for the fact the webcam was mounted higher up. There is also a screw-in metal portion of the base which can be unscrewed to reveal a tripod thread for secure mounting elsewhere.

Connectivity is simple with a USB-C to USB-A cable, and the Facecam MK.2 can work plug and play. There is some additional software for more granular control however in the form of Elgato Camera Hub. It’s an easy install, and the webcam was instantly recognised by the software without a hitch. If there are any firmware updates, it also instantly pops up with a dialog box to install them. While it installs, the Facecam MK.2’s light goes a solid yellow. For reference, when the webcam is being used, it’s blue.

The software is split into three tabs. The first of these, Camera, contains the most options for configuring the Facecam MK.2’s output. It’s in here where you can enable face tracking and fiddle with the webcam’s zoom and pan. You can also manually control the contrast, saturation, and sharpness, as well as change the exposure, white balance and noise reduction. The third tab, marked Prompter, works in conjunction with Elgato’s clever Teleprompter accessory to offer a means of bringing both camera and script together.

Arguably the cleverest tab though is the middle one, marked Effects, which allows you to mirror or flip the orientation of the webcam, or add AI backgrounds and effects such as Nvidia’s AR Eye Contact functionality. This requires the download of a separate Nvidia SDK to do so and is an interesting function to integrate into a third-party webcam. These work with varying successes, as some of the AI Backgrounds integrated well, such as a simple background blur, although the other options featured some clipping. The AR Eye Contact, by comparison, is a little frightening – it uses artificial intelligence to make sure you maintain eye contact with the webcam, even if you look away. By doing so, it removes the reflection in your eyes, and cleans up the whites in your eyes for an altogether intriguing experience:

Performance and Video Quality

• Reasonably detailed output
• Low light performance can be noisy
• No internal microphones

Much like its streaming-based brethren, the Facecam MK.2 opts for 1080p/60fps output to offer reasonable detail combined with smoother motion. In practice, its output offered exactly that. In well-lit environments, the Facecam MK.2 captured good detail levels and balanced out the incoming light from my bedroom window reasonably well.

As for low light performance, by default, the Facecam MK.2’s output is on the redder side and can be quite noisy. It compensates reasonably well for the lower light, although isn’t quite as clean as the Logitech StreamCam or even the laptop-oriented Opal Tadpole. It is possible to correct some of the noisiness within Elgato’s software with the high setting on noise reduction, although this smoothes things out too much and sacrifices some detail.

Much like the HyperX Vision S., the Facecam MK.2 also does without any microphones, signifying this is purely designed for people who already have a dedicated one in their streaming setup. This is a bit of a shame for more casual users, considering Logitech’s StreamCam has its own mic built in.

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