We know you’re beautiful, but maybe that cheap web camera from 2007 doesn’t always project your best image. Although web cameras are starting to come back down from the pandemic price gouging days, you could just build yourself a ring light and go from there, because better light may be all you need to look great.
Of course, this isn’t going to be cheaper than just buying a ring light, but if you already have a Circuit Playground and 3D printer lying around, you’re about halfway to owning one that’s much cooler than anything you can buy. The only other major hardware is the RGBW LED ring, the slide pots that adjust the light color, and the clicky little button that exits out of Zoom calls.
The business part is made to mount right over the camera, so the only part that has a footprint is the control box. No need to make space for a tripod or another boom. If you’re worried about staring into a bunch of lights, there’s a diffusing ring among the print files. We think this setup looks great, especially since [Southern Fried Science] built a light guide into the enclosure so those LED on the Circuit Playground don’t go to waste.
Do you just wish you had a more satisfying way to leave Zoom calls? If there’s a stud near your desk, it doesn’t get much more satisfying than a pull chain. If the only stud around is you, then use a giant mushroom button.
Via adafruit
One thing missing here is using a more useful color space than RGB to control the light’s hue. Using RGB for manual control is quite bad, as changing any single parameter messes up every sensible property you might want to keep constant (brightness, hue, saturation, color temperature, etc.). Using HSV would be much better. As a photographer, I would really like another color space: brightness, color temperature, and magenta-green. This would allow to easily adjust the light’s hue to match the environment.
“Don’t make the tools better” one wise old person told me once “make the craftsperson better”.
Then if our craft consists in making tools… ARGH! *disappears in a puff of logic smoke*
If you consider yourself (your mind, your body) as a tool, does that resolve the paradox? Or just make it worse?