Logitech 720p Webcam Pro 9000

By 

Robert L. Stinnett (Boonville, MO) –

  

  

  

Customer Video Review Length:: 1:15 Mins

The Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 is one of the better webcams I have had the opportunity to use over the years. Its stylish design fits easily on top of my LCD screen, while its functionality and features continue to impress. But, Vista functionality can be an adventure at a few times.

First, let’s talk about the excellent — picture quality. Let me place it to you reckon way: This webcam works better than my high priced Sony Camcorder at picking up video in low-light settings. I was simply amazed the first time I used it in a room with compact flourescents in the middle of the night and had such remarkable clarity and picture quality. Logitech credits this ability with something they call RightLight technology (in the video review I get it backwards — sorry Logitech!). Whatever you want to call it, it’s one of the features that certainly makes this webcam stand above the rest.

Next, the optics themselves are impressive. The 9000 utilized Carl Zeiss optics and you can tell the difference between this webcam and others. If you want to find out what makes Carl Zeiss optics so excellent, I encourage you to do a quick internet search or visit Wikipedia to look it up. It’s hard to describe in text how this optics setup helps — this is certainly something you have to see to believe.

By and large, I found it worked well with all the major instant messaging applications — AOL, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo. It also worked very well as a stand-alone camera taking incredible video and decent still shots — but remember, if you want to take a lot of still shots the quality you get from a product like this is honest at best compared to what you will get with a decent digital camera.

Now, let’s talk about a few things that weren’t so excellent about this webcam. The largest struggle I had was with Windows Vista. Even though the box proclaims it is certified for Vista, I had numerous driver issues. The Logitech 9000 worked in Vista just fine, but for some wits at random intervals it sought after to re-install its drivers. One thing you should know if you buy this camera is that when installing it you will want to make sure you have the installation program check for updates. I found there were two driver updates for the camera during install. But, even with these updates I continue to have that random re-installation issue.

The “helper application” that comes with the 9000 lets you do a lot of things — such as configure the webcam, add things, etc. Even if I had no problem configuring it I by no means got the things to work. But, this wasn’t a huge deal for me as I have no use for the special things.

By and large, if you are looking for a quality webcam that can produce terrific results I highly recommend the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000. Just be aware of potential Vista issues (which hopefully Logitech will solve). Other than that it’s so simple to use even beginners to computers will be able to get it up and running in no time. A quality webcam at a excellent price considering all of its features.

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Customer Video Review Length:: 2:06 Mins

UPDATE: Uploaded new video around October-November 2010 and this video is current as of February 7th, 2011. LATEST SOFTWARE RELEASE IS BUGGY! Watch Video
Also, I use this webcam to film beauty related reviews on youtube.

For those of you who’ve had issue with this cam, or those who’ve heard terrible things about this camera; watch the video. I’m no public speaker by any means, but I reckon it’s value watching so you can get the best out of your new or potentially new webcam.
UPDATE: LATEST Software is Buggy! Watch Video
If you didnt watch the video or want a summary of what I stated in the video, I’ll restate the main points below:
1. Always install the appropriate drivers from their logitech site. Regularly, the drivers on the disc are outdated.
2. Open up the Logitech Quickcam Vision for Enterprises software either through Start>All Programs>Logitech or just click on the icon provided on the desktop if there is one.
3. Unclick both Rightlight Automatic Settings(the eye picture icon) and Automatic Settings for Gain and Exposure(the owl picture icon). You can all find this below the gears icon. You can then adjust the bars left to right (especially exposure and gain) in view of that.
4. Below the camera picture icon in the software, you can also adjust for blue-collar/auto focus, brightness, draw a honor, affect, and white balance.
Doing all of this will raise your picture frame rate and minimize any blurring from motion.
Don’t ever worry how you’ll mess the camera settings up. If you first don’t succeed at what you want, you can always re-click auto settings and start all over. Personally, I find it kind of entertaining when I mess around with it!

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By 

David Stewart “dsjl” (Auburn Hills, MI United States) –

  

This review is for the benefit of Mac users, not Windows. I bought the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 and the Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision to choose a web camera for an iMac G5 2.0GHz, the generation immediately before the G5 iMac with the built-in iSight camera. And I’m running Mac OS X 10.5.1, the most updated (to date) Leopard. There is currently a camera for sale at Apple retail stores that is labeled the Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision MP, for Macs. It is the same hardware as the Ultra Vision and Ultra Vision SE for Windows; all the Ultra Vision cameras differ only in cosmetics, affect–they’re all the same hardware.

On a Mac, the cameras both run on the built-in Apple drivers. There are no Logitech drivers, no Logitech software. Therefore none of the Logitech special things or light and sound management that the box lists work for Mac users. No autofocus, no RightLight2, no RightSound. Kind of a drag. In addition, there is no ability to deal with affect, light balance, etc., from any operating system software on the Mac or from Logitech. This is pure plug-and-play, and you get only the most basic functionality: The camera and microphone work (not sure about quality of sound on receiving end) to deliver picture and sound, neither tunable with what is in the box.

What the two cameras have in common is that they work for Mac users. According to what I’ve read, any camera that is labeled as Microsoft Windows Vista-compatible or UVC (USB Video Class) will work just as these do in Mac OS X, with this prereq: You have to have OS X 10.4.9 minimum. Tiger (OS X 10.4) is currently at 10.4.11; Leopard is at 10.5.1. Both will help video and sound on UVC cameras.

That said, the Pro 9000 and Ultra Vision differ in some significant ways. The focus on the Pro 9000 (P9K hereafter) is tighter than on the Ultra Vision (UV hereafter). The focus on the UV is comparatively lower in resolution; you can see jaggies on straight lines on either camera, but they’re pretty visible on the UV, and you have to look for them on the P9K. I would say the P9K is certainly superior, and neither is as excellent as the iSight cameras built into any of the current Mac lines (but then, if you had a Mac with iSight, you wouldn’t be reading this). The P9K’s resolution is finer than the UV.

As to affect I would say that if I could have a compromise between the two cameras, the UV and the Pro 9000, it would be better than either. The Pro 9000 affect/exposure is a bit washed out; the UV is a bit dim. E.g., a blue pinpoint oxford shirt looks barely blue on the Pro 9000, and much more saturated on the UV. The entirety of the UV’s affect tilts heavily toward blue, while the Pro 9000 goes more toward yellow. (I would be unusual to know if the affect balance varies by model or by individual camera. I’d also like to see if other brands, say, Creative Labs, differ too.) Both cameras adjust to changing light, but in low light the Pro 9000 is not just a small but significantly better; in very low light, the UV near blacks out, while screen light is enough for the PK9 to deliver a passable image, albeit with low frame rate and lots and lots of motion blur.

Note that on a G5 or earlier (any non-Intel Mac), the help for iChat and PhotoBooth’s things is restricted–specifically, they’ll do the first two panels (affect things, including charcoal, Andy Warhol-ish, X-ray, B/W, sepia, and the pinch, twirl, and similar things), but none of the backdrop things, either still or moving.

I found both to work with iChat, PhotoBooth, Skype, and several of the shareware camera apps available. So I would say they work, period.

While neither Apple nor Logitech provides much more help for cameras, eCamm.com has a bevy of camera titles that grant extra power for web cameras on non-Intel Mac hardware. iGlasses, PowerBoost, and a link other titles grant affect tuning, restore some of the things capabilities that PPC Macs don’t get in iChat and PhotoBooth, and grant recordability with QuickTime output. They do excellent work. iGlasses provides some control over brightness, draw a honor, saturation, hue, gamma, sharpness, gain, white balance. I didn’t find these to really improve the metaphors on the P9K, but they did help the UV. Once you get a camera, you may want to get some of eCamm’s software.

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