Using a Canon HDSLR (5D Mark II) as a webcam for skype or ustream

Posted on 07. Jun, 2010

As many of you know, we do our planet5D live interviews via UStream and we use Skype to help out with that. And, since we’re all about covering Canon HDSLRs like the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (reviews), we thought we should use one as a webcam while we’re doing the interviews (and soon to be doing the live talk show as well). And, we’ve had lots of questions about how we accomplish that, so we put together this little video to explain the tools we use.

To use your Canon HDSLR for Skype on a mac, you need these tools (and note, you’ll want to launch them in this order as well):

CamTwist software – there is a windows equivalent
The Canon EOS utility â€¨(off your Canon software CD)
Skype

UPDATE: Levi (in the comments below) pointed out that if you use “LIVE Face Detection Mode” in the Focus menu, the little white rectangle goes away (tho you do have to turn Autofocus off on your lens or you’ll get real live view focusing)! Yippee!

Also: this comment from the vimeo post… “There’s another way to do this with Skype and a Canon DSLR (I used a 40D). Though not as integrated as this setup, all you have to do is open the EOS utility and bring up remote shoot (same as in this video). Instead of using camtwist, all you have to do is “share” the portion of your face using Skype. The video feed quality depends on your connection, but it seems to get decent results without the hassle of a third party program.”

Using a Canon HDSLR (5D Mark II) as a webcam for skype or ustream from planetMitch on Vimeo.

If you have some tips or tricks that I haven’t shown in the video, please let me know!

(Photo credit: snap from the video)

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23 Responses to “Using a Canon HDSLR (5D Mark II) as a webcam for skype or ustream”

Levi Bethune

07. Jun, 2010

Hey Mitch, thanks for this, it’s what I’ve been looking for. Nice workaround.

That little white box has been the bane of my existence, however, in the EOS utility, depending on the camera model, I was able to select the “Face Detection Live View” mode in the drop down menu for Focus, and the white box went away. This works for me because I use manual focus in the studio, so your milage may vary.

Just thought it was worth the mention. You’re able to select a bigger portion of the screen without that little buggar in the way.

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Levi Bethune

07. Jun, 2010

Another application that I’ve used to capture video sources from the desktop is GrabberRaster – b-l-a-c-k-o-p.com/GrabberRaster.html – It’s a solid application that does essentially what CamTwist does, but it let’s you set a specific size, as well as constrain proportions. I think it costs a few bucks, but I use it every week, so it was worth it for me.

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Peter Forsgard

08. Jun, 2010

Have had any problems with overheating? I did a test and quite quickly my 7D was warning about overheating.

Thanks for the tutorial!

Reply to this comment
- planetMitch
  
  08. Jun, 2010
  
  I haven’t had any trouble with heat – which might be even surprising since the camera is sitting right behind my hot iMac. Now the 7D has been known to have more issues than the 5D2 – so your mileage may vary.
  
  Reply to this comment
Marc Ostrick

08. Jun, 2010

Will this also work for the 7D?

Reply to this comment
- planetMitch
  
  08. Jun, 2010
  
  Yes, absolutely – any of the Canon cameras that come with the EOS utility and that have live view should work.
  
  Reply to this comment
ram shani

08. Jun, 2010

great news

just found it :

5DtoRGB converts Canon EOS series video files to

high-quality DPX sequences or ProRes QuickTime files:

ProRes 4444 and 422 (LT) Output (requires Mac OS X 10.6)
ProRes 422 (HQ) and ProRes 422 Output
Higher quality output than Canon’s E1 plugin [compare]
Higher quality output than QuickTime Player or FCP [compare]
Raw YUV output option for unprocessed luma channel extraction
Output luminance matte as an alpha channel (ProRes 4444 only)
Timecode support: extracts Exif timestamp from THM files

rarevision.com/5dtorgb/

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Bill Totolo

15. Jun, 2010

See footage transcoded with 5DtoRGB here:

www.vimeo.com/12538739

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Amadeo

12. Jul, 2010

Great news. I never thought of using a DSLR with Ustream (actually, no need for camtwist with Ustream, as Ustream Producer has screencast capture capabilities.)

The question is, how do you deal with audio? I guess you capture the audio separately. Any sync issues?

Reply to this comment
- planetMitch
  
  13. Jul, 2010
  
  Actually, in my case I do need camtwist. I’m using the UStream screencast to capture the output from my Canon EOS 5D Mark II and I’m using CamTwist as an input camera to UStream to capture the skype webcam feed. If UStream producer would let me do two screen captures, I’d be ok
  
  I should do another video to talk about the audio. I purchased a license to Audio Hijack Pro to spit the audio from Skype and my external mic into UStream. It is a bit complicated tho, but basically it is a software audio mixer. I don’t have any sync issues.
  
  Reply to this comment
Richard Allen Crook

13. Jul, 2010

As we found out in our broadcast, that you just need EOS utility and Skype to broadcast your 5d image over Skype. No need for camtwist or anything. Just tell Skype to broadcast your desktop, and limit the window to the live view window of EOS utility.

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Andreas

03. Nov, 2010

Screen capture might work for some things, but for situations where you need the screen space for other information, such as when VJ’ing, screen capture uses up too much screen space..

For PC there is www.extrawebcam.com that turns your live-view enabled dslr into a generic video source. The developer is currently busy with other things, but is preparing to take a look at making a Mac version when he’s got the time. No promises, but at least he’s got the intention of making a try.

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Mark Hewitt

13. Dec, 2011

Great Post… I’m going to give my t3i a shot at being a nice web camera

Reply to this comment
michiel

20. Feb, 2012

Hi, great vid. But I can’t seem to be able to select camtwist in ustream nor twitcam. In skype I can select camtwist…?

do you maybe have a solution?

Sincerely,

Michiel

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Paddy O'Shea

27. Feb, 2012

Hi Mitch,

Have you tried soundflower for your mic? It’s a nifty little application and it works with Camtwist and Medialive Encoder. It will bypass skype and basically set your input and output through either 2CH or 16CH. I played around with it last night and I have to say I was extremely impressed with it. Especially for a free application.

Reply to this comment
- planetMitch
  
  27. Feb, 2012
  
  Yes, I have soundflower – use it in conjunction with Audio Hijack Pro – works like a charm! I really need to do a new one of these videos
  
  Reply to this comment
Hannes

30. Jun, 2012

Thanks for the tutorial. I have a Canon 550D and everything looked good in the preview window of CamTwist. But when I went to USTREAM I couldn’t select CamTwist as a camera source, only iSight. I have a free USTREAM account and I didn’t use the desktop application, just the browser window (Flash) that popped up when I clicked “Go Live!”.

Do you have any ideas for how I can make it work?

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Eduardo

10. Jul, 2012

I was looking for a brief explanation about how to do this and after several videos yours was the one that gave me the solution, thanks a lot I will follow you from now on

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Mario Rodríguez

13. Sep, 2012

¿Can you also record at the same time?

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Alec

21. Mar, 2013

On Windows there is alternative – it is possible to use it as a webcam with the help of SparkoCam from sparkosoft.com

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