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Sunday 15 May 2016

Use a D-SLR as a webcam in Windows FOR FREE!

Recently I've been developing a stop-motion animation program and a result I've been exploring possible ways to allow users to use D-SLRs without me having to delve into the Canon SDK.

The solution I've found is to use a program to make the D-SLR appear to programs as webcam. However until now I haven't found a free program that does this for Windows (Mac users should check out CamTwist). Without further ado, I'd like to introduce digiCamControl.

digiCamControl is a free program that allows you control and get a live feed from a number of supported Canon, Nikon and Sony cameras.

It also has a Web Server function and this has recently been expanded to include a virtual webcam feature which allows cameras appear to applications as a webcam and hence work with programs such as Helium Frog, Monkeyjam or Heron Animation. Video chat applications such as Skype will also work, however the live feed from this method has a slight delay and low frame rate making it not very ideal for video chatting.

Here's how to set this up:

  1. Download and install beta version 2.0.17 (IMPORTANT) or above of digiCamControl.
  2. Open digiCamControl and in the menu bar navigate to "File > Settings".
  3. Select the "web server" tab and tick "use webserver". For privacy reasons I'd recommend making sure that the "allow public access" option below this is unchecked.
  4. Restart digiCamControl with your camera turned on and connected to your computer via a USB cable.
  5. Click "allow access" if a Windows Firewall alert appears.
  6. Press the "Live view" button in digiCamControl (it has an icon with "Lv" on it).
  7. Open the program you want to use the camera with and choose "digiCamControl Virtual WebCam" as your video source.

Tips:

  • If a green focus rectangle is displayed on the image you can hide it by unchecking "show focus rectangle" in the display menu of the live view window of digiCamControl.
  • Using live view quickly drains your camera's battery. Consider purchasing an AC adapter for it.

While this method isn't as slick as a native solution, I hope it allows you to at least make some use of your fancy D-SLR in many Windows programs without having to pay for something like SparkoCam.

If you have any questions feel free to comment below and I will do my best to help out!

14 comments:

  1. it doesn't work .. it gives black image only !

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    1. Please give more detailled information on what exactly the problem is, how the problem represents itself and what you allready did. Otherwise no-one will be able to trouble shoot.

      Does DCC recognise your camera (is it shown in lower left corner)? Do you get an image if you start using the live view within DCC only? Make sure you have restarted DCC after activating server. If still not working try to uninstall and re-install DCC fully.

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. how do I et it to feed into Skype?

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  4. when using it in discord, skype, or obs im only getting a black image

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  5. I can see it works with the Canon view, but I get a black screen with the digicam virtual webcam so I can't use other apps like Loom, etc.

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  6. i never know the use of adobe shadow until i saw this post. thank you for this! this is very helpful. webcam chat

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  7. Not working with Skype. It seems only SarkoCam in the market has this function to work with Skype. That´s sad.

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  8. Hi, Im just trying to use Digicamcontrol with Skype and zoom, but it doesn't appear as a selectable camera in either application. Has anybody found a work around to get it working?

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  9. For Skype - just use some mapper of web-server MJPEG to virtual web camera device like "IP-Camera-Bridge" (https://github.com/shenyaocn/IP-Camera-Bridge). This also works for FB Live streaming and possibly many other apps...

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