• Joined: December 27, 2008

Topic: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

I wanted to start a thread dedicated to all things related to the QC Pro9000 webcam for PCs.

I'll get the ball rolling by asking if people use or don't use the "anti-flicker" setting when animating.  In North America, I'd set it to 60Hz, and I can see how this might be a useful feature for live filming, but does it make any sense to use it for stop-motion animation?  Will the "anti-flicker" actually cause flicker in stop-motion because it is an automatic feature [the camera/software may be trying to continually check and adjust for it]?

I'll also comment on the "white balance" setting.  If I start out with it set to manual and move the slider to the extremes, I seem to have a certain range of control.  But if I set it temporarily to "auto" and then back to manual, the range of control for the slider changes drastically.  For instance, at first, sliding to the far left usually looks best, but setting things to auto usually also takes it to the far left but really changes the look of the things, mainly that the reds are now too purple-ish.  Resetting the thing back to manual, I now need to move the slider to about the mid-point for things to look like they did when I was originally in manual and at the far left.  And even then, I think the color seems to change, that things never look as good (too bluish) if I ever set to auto and then back to manual.  So what I've been doing is avoiding the "auto" white balance like the plague, never setting it to auto.

[When is 'auto' anything ever useful?  Well I do use the "auto" feature for the exposure and gain as a starting point.  I let the camera select what auto settings it likes, then I turn the auto off and manually fine tune them if I want.  But usually the auto settings are pretty good if I'm going for a pretty standard lighting look.  Of course, never leave this set to auto or it can slightly change settings every frame which would  produce horrible flicker in your animation.]

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Nope, don't use the "anti-flicker" thing. Doesn't seem to help.

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              bricksinmotion's #13th best curmudgeon
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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Yes, anti-flicker does indeed create light flicker.

Auto features are good for setting up a shot. Turn them on, let it adjust and turn it off.

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Anti-Flicker isn't very good if you don't have flicker to begin with.

I have a question:
- What's the best way to adjust the White Balance? I can't get a perfect white. I played around with the Color Intensity too, and it all ends up yellowish.

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"actuallly this involves spiderman too, not batman. but im also taking a new approach, more comedy, less action. i dont see to many movies like that with more comedy than action" --SteveStarfyTV on an Indiana Jones meets Star Wars idea.

fib12345's Website

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

fib12345 wrote:

Anti-Flicker isn't very good if you don't have flicker to begin with.

And if you do have flicker in your stop-motion animation, it sounds like turning on Anti-flicker on the QCP9000 will NOT help, may even make it worse.

fib12345 wrote:

I have a question:
- What's the best way to adjust the White Balance? I can't get a perfect white. I played around with the Color Intensity too, and it all ends up yellowish.

Lighting - I find the bluish "Reveal" bulbs produce truer colors

Have you tried letting the 9000 automatically set exposure & gain levels first before messing with the white balance?  I know if you reduce the gain too much, whites lose there brightness and become yellowish/brownish.

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Ahh, good idea -- thanks AncientBricks.

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"actuallly this involves spiderman too, not batman. but im also taking a new approach, more comedy, less action. i dont see to many movies like that with more comedy than action" --SteveStarfyTV on an Indiana Jones meets Star Wars idea.

fib12345's Website

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Hey guys, I was wondering how to get the best quality w/ the 9k?
'Nyone know?

what could have been: jeffrey and the old man make some robots
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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Open your animation software, and set a nice screen size (I use VGA). Use the Manual Focus.

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/fib12345/Lolz/lulz.png
"actuallly this involves spiderman too, not batman. but im also taking a new approach, more comedy, less action. i dont see to many movies like that with more comedy than action" --SteveStarfyTV on an Indiana Jones meets Star Wars idea.

fib12345's Website

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

I tend to do the same, ie set the camera to auto and let it settle, then turn it to manual. Often you only need to tweak the focus to get really good results.

The camera is really very good, my only complaint is the depth of field is poor. I understand depth of field can only be improved by closing the aperture on a camera (the size of the hole in the front!). Unfortunately webcams have this fixed. Does anyone know any better?

By the way if anyone feels the need to put a better lens on a QC9000 I found this tutorial. I think this would be the ultimate brickfilm setup. I don't know enough about focal lengths and photography techy stuff to know what lens to buy.

http://ghonis2.ho8.com/Pro9000mod.html

Free Animation Software at www.HeliumFrog.com

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

martinprice2004 wrote:

...my only complaint is the depth of field is poor. I understand depth of field can only be improved by closing the aperture on a camera (the size of the hole in the front!). Unfortunately webcams have this fixed. Does anyone know any better?

Hi Martin,

Here's the work-around I use to address this limitation of the camera.  If I understand depth of field, it's like how much is in focus at the same time.  When the focus is set closer to infinity ["mountains" icon], a deeper range of objects look like they are in focus, at least focused enough for most of my purposes.  So to pretend like I can close the aperture, I set my 9000 further away from the subjects, and set my resolution as high as possible [1600x1200].  Then I "close the aperture" after filming by cropping the 1600x1200 images down to the frame res I'm filming in [usually 856x480] using VirtualDub.  Using the adjustable "safe window" in Helium Frog, I can set that to 856x480 when filming so I can still frame my subjects properly.  [A very handy feature, I've discovered. mini/smile]

I'd love to hear if anyone attempts changing the lens in the 9000, how that goes.

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

does anyone know how to actually get 30fps video out of the QCP 9k?

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Oh yes! This is a useful post, I was just about to ask how to fix my flicker on my 9k. lolol

olol

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

anti-flicker will help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql7LeENz … ideo_title <--my newest video

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

I got a problem, ever since I clicked on the 'Right Light Settings' on the camera (out of curiosity of what it does), all the settings act as if they are on auto but when I check they are on manual. mini/confused Then when I switched off the right light thingy nothing changed. What should I do?
A quick response would be greatly appreciated mini/smile

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Jon Uninstall the Logitech software and then install it before plugging in the 9000. Hope it helps! mini/bigsmile

mini/cat

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

I had that SAME problem.

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Sleuth5000 wrote:

anti-flicker will help.

I think the consensus of the earlier posts is that it's actually best to turn OFF the "anti-flicker" in the QCP9000 software.  Turning it on (to 50 or 60Hz) will cause the software to try to automatically adjust for AC light flicker, and this "automatic" feature could slightly adjust image captures so that they don't match previous or subsequent captured images actually causing a flicker (like auto-focus, auto-whitebalance, auto-exposure would do).

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Sleuth5000 wrote:

anti-flicker will help.

Actually, Anti-Flicker just makes the problem worse. It's designed to even out the light in live action video. In stop motion, where there's a few seconds between every frame's capture, it can really vary the light.

But then again, you don't own a QC9k.

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/fib12345/Lolz/lulz.png
"actuallly this involves spiderman too, not batman. but im also taking a new approach, more comedy, less action. i dont see to many movies like that with more comedy than action" --SteveStarfyTV on an Indiana Jones meets Star Wars idea.

fib12345's Website

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

Cause your hand is coming on the set, the light will change with rightlight and antlightflicker, just don't use it and close windows and stuff ok?

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Re: QuickCam Pro 9000 Discussion, Tips and Issues

fib12345 wrote:
Sleuth5000 wrote:

anti-flicker will help.

Actually, Anti-Flicker just makes the problem worse. It's designed to even out the light in live action video. In stop motion, where there's a few seconds between every frame's capture, it can really vary the light.

But then again, you don't own a QC9k.

Oh sorry. I meant to say anti-flicker WON'T help. I gotta stop typing so fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql7LeENz … ideo_title <--my newest video

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