Nowadays video calls have become part of our daily lives; and the variety of models and prices of webcams are very different but they all have something in common, even if you use them to make live videos on YouTube, Twitch, or to make video calls, the image quality is not always the best and the designs are not the most pleasing to the eye.
Looking for a webcam with good image quality and a good design, I came across the Lumina and after using it for several weeks I have to admit that it really exceeded my expectations. Down below I am going to tell you everything you need to know about this camera.
The Design
The first thing that caught my attention about this camera was its design. The lumina has a sturdy aluminum casing and you can feel the good quality of construction; it has a size of 7 cm long by 2 cm wide.
The camera is small and portable, which makes it very useful if you have a laptop and are constantly moving from place to place or traveling for work.
The camera is available in four different colors: Silver, Rose, Gold, and Atomic gray (the one on the pictures). The colors are very similar to a Macbook and other Apple products, so if you have one it can look great on it.
The webcam connects via USB-C and comes with two cables, one long (153cm / 60.2 in) and one short (83cm / 32.6 in).
The base fits on any laptop or monitor and it has an axis that can be rotated to change the direction of the camera. On the bottom of the base, there is a hole to which you can attach a tripod in case you want to use the camera on the side of the computer and don’t want to place it directly on it.
The camera has two LEDs on the front, the circular one indicates when the camera is on and the second one indicates when the microphone is on and receiving audio.
If you are one of those people who put a post-it on the camera lens so that the FBI does not spy on you, I have good news for you, the lumina has a magnetic cover that hides the camera lens.
If you are interested in the Lumina you can purchase it on this link and get a 10% DISCOUNT with the CODE: “hanns”.
Image Quality
The camera has a wide-angle lens approximately with a focal range similar to a 20mm lens on a full-frame camera; or similar to the front camera of an iPhone 13, and the sensor has a size of 25 mm².
The camera has 3 resolutions, HD 720, Full HD, and 4k. If you want to use this camera or any webcam to make video calls for example with Zoom or Google Meet, you have to know that these applications work with a maximum resolution of HD (720). So I want you to know that even if you use a 4K camera it will not be seen in that resolution when you use it in a video call.
I used to use my Sony camera for video calls because of the image quality, but it takes a long time to set everything up. By playing around with Lumina’s settings I was able to bring the image to a similar look to my Sony a7iii.
Tweak Settings using the App
The Lumina has an app that I recommend 100% downloading because with it you have control of the settings, you can obviously leave the camera on auto, but I do not recommend this, as there is nothing better than adjusting the camera yourself to the environment where you are.
In the main menu, we can adjust exposure, white balance, red and blue tones, saturation, and field of view (zoom). We also have 5 levels of artificial blur, for me level 3 is the closest to something natural, as we all know how terrible Zoom or Google Meet is.
The zoom is done on the sensor and is not an optical zoom, this is very important because this way the quality is preserved.
And if you’re a nerd like me, you can go to the advanced settings where you can configure the camera more precisely. The app allows you to save the settings you make to the camera so you can use them again and not have to redo them.
You don’t need to download the app to use the camera, you can connect the camera directly to your computer and start using it and the resolution you get is automatically 4K. I 100% recommend downloading the app to use the settings.
If you want to use the camera to go do streaming or record videos you can do it with many apps, I did it with OBS and it worked perfectly except when I set the resolution to 4k in Lumina Plus mode (with blurred background), the lag was very strong but it is possible that this has to do with my computer, as the camera needs a very powerful CPU in 4K.
Camera modes
Lumina Plus: Which uses artificial intelligence to add a blur to the background and simulate a blur or bokeh.
Lumina Raw: In this mode, there is no blur at all and the camera is not controlled by the AI.
Audio quality (microphones)
The Lumina has 2 dual microphones with noise cancellation, to eliminate ambient sounds.
I thought the audio quality was fantastic for a webcam, I did several tests with the camera placed a meter away and I would really give the audio quality a 5 stars review..
Compatibility
The Lumina is compatible with Windows and Mac, it is recommended to use Windows 10 and macOS 10.14 or higher to experience the full capabilities of the webcam.
Conclusion
One of the things I like the most is the app, to be able to set the camera and adjust every detail to get the colors and the desired exposure, for me, as a person who is dedicated to making videos, it is very important because I like to have control of the image and not leave the camera to decide for me.
A small detail that I am not a big fan of is the filter that the camera applies to your face to soften the skin. I wish the app would allow you to remove it or reduce its intensity, but I think this is something that could be added with a simple software update.
The image quality of the lumina is amazing, the style of the camera is very minimalist and subtle and for 200$ you can have a webcam that can be used to make video calls, streams or record videos directly to your computer with very good quality.
