Impress your colleagues with DLSR quality webcams in Teams, Zoom and more

Canon are famous for making great cameras, but the reality is, most of the time that expensive camera (and lenses) sit on your desk between shoots.

Now there’s a much better use for your photography investment, allowing you to use those amazing optics to replace that el’cheapo webcam in your laptop.

Canon have released a new EOS Webcam Utility in beta. This software allows a range of Canon cameras to connect to your PC via USB cable and appear in video conferencing applications as a webcam source.

This means you can impress / confuse your colleagues on Microsoft Teams or Zoom calls with how amazing your video quality looks.

Most average webcams included in your laptop are garbage, with manufacturers still shipping a 1.3, maybe a 2.0 megapixel camera. Contrast this with something like the 20.1 Megapixel sensor of a Canon Powershot G7 X Mark III I happen to have in for review right now.

To get it up and running is really simple, just head to the Canon Support/Drivers and Download page, select your camera from the list (assuming its on the supported list) and download the ‘EOS Webcam Utility Beta 0.9.0 for Windows’.

The 1.48MB is a tiny utility that does the magic and after going through the next, next, done installation process, you should be right to fire up your favourite conferencing software and select the Canon camera as your input source.

Your camera does need to be on the video mode and it’s a great idea to flip around the rear screen so you can confirm how your shot is framed and how it’s focused. Autofocus is fine, but having manual focus with the full depth of field effect will really show off that you’re using something quite different.

I guarantee you’ll have the best camera quality of any meeting, regardless of the Canon model you’re using.

I hope the rise in video conferencing during this Coronavirus lockdown will force laptop and tablet makers to improve the quality of camera they include in the top bezel. It’s now not the occasional call you need it for, but multiple calls per day.

The full list of supported cameras include:

EOS DSLR Cameras

EOS-1D X Mark II
EOS-1D X Mark III
EOS 5D Mark IV
EOS 5DS
EOS 5DS R
EOS 6D Mark II
EOS 7D Mark II
EOS 77D
EOS 80D
EOS 90D
EOS Rebel SL2
EOS Rebel SL3
EOS Rebel T6
EOS Rebel T6i
EOS Rebel T7
EOS Rebel T7i
EOS Rebel T100

EOS Mirrorless Cameras

EOS M6 Mark II 
EOS M50
EOS M200
EOS R
EOS RP

PowerShot Cameras

PowerShot G5X Mark II
PowerShot G7X Mark III
PowerShot SX70 HS

More information at Canon.