One side-effect of everyone working from home is a major shortage of webcams — this has even driven Adorama to manufacture and sell their own webcam under their “Green Extreme” private brand. It’s one of the few webcams we can find in-stock from a reputable store at this time ($89.95).
In a pinch, you can use your Canon camera as a webcam, without buying extra hardware. This is great if you can’t find a webcam, or if you’re tired of grainy video and want to add some bokeh to your video-chats. For Mac, open-source software can stream your USB-tethered Canon camera video — find instructions here or a video tutorial here. If you’re using Windows, commercial software Sparkocam is available — the free version comes with a watermark, but is usable.
UPDATE: Two hours after our post, Canon published a YouTube video touting their new Webcam Utility Beta Software which is another alternative to the commercial Sparkocam software, for Windows.
If you’re planning on using your camera in this way, an AC adapter is recommended to avoid unnecessarily cycling your batteries. Sadly, these adapters too are in short supply (B&H, Adorama).
UPDATE: Two hours after our post, Canon published a YouTube video touting their new Webcam Utility Beta Software which is another alternative to the commercial Sparkocam software, for Windows.