The New "Face Time Camera"

JFraser wrote:
Does the new Face Time Camera that replaces the iSight camera have higher resolution and/or a low light booster, or does it just go by the new name since the Face Time application is being introduced into the new MacBook Air?

This page (Page-Down) says it the FT Cam is thinner than the iSight:

  http://www.apple.com/macbookair/features.html

Until Apple publishes more technical data or someone gets and test a new MBAir, that is the best I can offer.


Message was edited by: EZ Jim


Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz Mac OS X (10.6.4); MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.4)
LED Cinema Display; G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11); iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9); External iSight; iPod touch 4.1

According to this picture the FT camera is round. Looking at the iSight camera on my MBP, it's square.

The new FaceTime camera on the 13 inch MBA is definitely a lower resolution camera and less capable in low light than the ones in my MBP 17 i7 and MBP 15 (which it replaced). On iChat the difference is visually about that between VHS quality vs DVD.

It works, but you won't look anywhere near as sharp as on the MacBook Pro cameras.

I can confirm that on my 11" MBA, the camera doesn't deal well with low light. Dark colors are grainy, and faces look blotchy. However, in good lighting, the picture is quite sharp and clear, and skin tones are more even. I'm not making movies with the thing, so I'm pretty happy with it, and I'm impressed that it was engineered to fit in a part of the lid that is only 3mm thick.

altough i dont know the technical specs my MBA 13 inch facetime camera is definatly lower quality then the isight.

i think it's a 1 mp camera judging by the quality.
the picture quality looks blurred in ichat.

Franklin. wrote:
altough i dont know the technical specs my MBA 13 inch facetime camera is definatly lower quality then the isight.

i think it's a 1 mp camera judging by the quality.
the picture quality looks blurred in ichat.

FaceTime camera is actually a 0̸.3 MP webcam, Franklin.
 
The FaceTime camera's resolutions is limited to 640x480 pixels. Keeping resolution low saves power (heat), battery life, processor workload, and data storage space, while offering enough quality for webcam applications. The resolution of built-in iSight cameras varies among Mac models. For instance, my 13-inch MBP's iSight is also 640x480, but some higher priced MBPs have 1280x1024 (1.3 MP) iSights.

Because image quality is important to you, you should test the camera of any Mac you consider buying. This test is as simple as using the camera with each app that is important to you and looking at the image the camera produces *before you buy*.

Although higher resolution does not necessarily guarantee higher image quality, increased resolution can be important in some applications. However, I cannot find Apple published webcam resolution specifications by model. Therefore, if knowing the resolution is also important to you, the best way I know to determine the resolution on Macs running Snow Leopard (10.6.x) is to use the Mac's QuickTime (ver. 10) to make a short test video clip at maximum image Quality. Before starting the test, verify that image Quality setting is at "Maximum" as shown in this image:



 



Then use QT's " Movie Inspector" to see the resolution in the saved clip.

Message was edited by: EZ Jim


Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz Mac OS X (10.6.6)
MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.6)
LED Cinema Display; G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11)
iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9); External iSight; iPod4touch4.2.1