Did you know that this legendary quote by Humphrey Bogart from the movie “Casablanca” is actually a translation error?
Anyway, back to the topic.
Since we’ve all been increasingly engaged in video calls, I’ve been bothered by a small but important issue: We no longer look each other in the eyes.
Camera ≠ Focus Point
This is due to physical reasons. The webcam is not where we instinctively look. We look at the window of our video app, which is somewhere on the screen.
On laptops with rather small screens and built-in webcams, it’s not so bad. But on large desktop monitors, the lack of eye focus quickly becomes disturbing.
Live Hack
Here’s a tip on how you can at least somewhat reduce the perspective problem:
- Set up your webcam so that it’s as close to the top edge of the screen as possible. Clip it to the top of the monitor or level it on the stand just above the top edge of the screen.
- Now, also position your video call window as close to the top edge of the screen as possible. Make the window as small as possible and move it as close as possible under the camera.
This reduces the distance between the camera and the screen content.
If you now take a step back from the screen, the eye focus is almost okay. The shift is then hardly noticeable to the viewer.
The Ultimate Solution: Teleprompter
However, the focus shift can never be completely eliminated in this setting. It only disappears when the camera is directly behind the video app window. To achieve this, you need a teleprompter. My next post will be about such a device.
