Logitech C920 Webcam Review

I was super excited when I had contacted Logitech to see if we can review some products and they agreed to send me the Logitech C920 webcam to review.

The Logitech C920 can capture 1080p at 30fps and has a true 3MP optical lens but is capable of taking 2MP, 3MP, 6MP, or 15MP image snapshots thanks to its software enhancements which improve it’s optical lens further.

The C920 has a 78 degree field of view, and one of the things I liked most about the Logitech C920 is that it is camera mount compatible, you can simply screw in a tripod mound clip and put it on a tripod next to your setup so you can record more than just your face sitting down in front of a computer.

You can use it to replace mini camcorders and the stereo microphones on the Logitech C920 are much better than any microphones you find in a small mini-camcorder or pocket camcorder.  So as long as you want to do video recording within the 6′ USB plug of your computer, you can use the Logitech C920 to do video recordings and not just live web chats.

When I first plugged in the Logitech C920 webcam Windows 8 came up with a searching for device dialog box that just stayed searching for 5 minutes or longer and never did come back with anything useful so I just closed out of it.  I went to the Logitech C920 Download site and downloaded the Windows 8 drivers for the C920.

C920 Image Capture

Images taken with the Logitech C920 were as good as you can expect from a webcam and were more than sufficient for creating profile pics, logo’s and to take pictures of anything you were holding.

3MP Image Resolution

16MP Image Resolution

The image is much sharper with the higher pixel resolution though the file size is also larger but not bad for the resolution size.  Image sizes taken with the C920 average about 350kb for a 2MP picture taken, 450kb for a 3MP picture taken, 740kb for a 6MP image capture and 1.45mb for a 16MP picture snapshot.

C920 Video Capture

The Logitech Webcam software is sufficient for capturing video and has some nice features to zoom, tilt the camera and even has the ability to do face tracking.

You can also disable auto-focus if it gets too annoying or you move around a bit and set it to macro mode for closer video recording shots.  Sound quality recording is good for a webcam, I did have to turn the microphone up to 85-95% if the webcam is about 24-30″ distant from your mouth, but using simple editing software to clean up the background noise produced clear sound.  It isn’t going to be as good as the Behringer USB mic that I am using, but it is certainly very good for a webcam.

I was looking forward to doing screencast recording with Camtasia Studio 8 while recording my face with the Logitech C920 webcam but found out real fast that the Logitech C920 webcam is incompatible with Camtasia studio 8.  This is a known issue when searching the forums for Camtasia studio and is due to the Logitech C920 recording in H.264 codec as it records, Camtasia can’t work with this input stream and Camtasia Studio 8 crashed for me and would not re-open until I rebooted Windows 8 after making the attempt to record my C920 webcam with Camtasia Studio 8.

However, this is not a showstopper as you can just record your talking with the Logitech webcam software at the same time as you do your screencast recording, or you can do 2 recordings separately, one for the screencast and one for the webcam portion.  Still I do wish that Camtasia Studio 8 would work with the Logitech C920 webcam for recording and hope that this can be a working enhancement for Camtasia Studio 8.

In Summary

The C920 webcam is actually the best webcam I have ever used and is better than any of the mini-camcorders I have used for capturing video, stills and for sound.  Though even with it’s strong stereo microphone if it is more than 2′ from your mouth you sound distant, it picks up the voice fair enough and is easy to trim the background noise with an application.  The video recording works well, but I was dismayed that Camtasia Studio 8 is not compatible capturing video from the Logitech C920 and you have to use it’s webcam software or other compatible software.

Update

Great News for Camtasia Studio Users, the new Camtasia Studio 8.1 not only adds Green Screen support, but also now works with the Logitech C920 Webcam, so now you can record from your C920 webcam while doing screen recordings for picture in picture recordings.  Below is an image showing the functionality now works with the Logitech C920 and Camtasia 8.1

 

Disclaimer:  Logitech sent me the C920 webcam so I can do a thorough and accurate review of the product.  All opinions are 100% mine and mine alone.