Canon EOS M

I use an entry level mirror less DSLR, the canon M50. And I think it was about $350 and it can connect directly via USB.

This is something i've struggled with for a while, working remotely for years now, and not wanting to be depersoned by my team never seeing my face. I tried a logi 920, which i thought was pricey for a webcam, but the image quality is terrible. And every time it starts up, it runs in 60hz anti-flicker mode which flickers like crazy here in australia where we run 50hz power, so i have to start their awful software to change the setting. Eventually I returned it and got a canon m50. Image quality is good now. I saw some people on the internet saying it could be powered through the usb connection but that turned out to be false, so i have to change the battery every few days which is frustrating. I know you can get a pass-thru 'battery' that connects to a mains adapter, ive yet to try that. Also frustrating is having to reach up and turn it on before a meeting and off at the end. Next macOS has the feature to use an old iphone as a camera. If this works seamlessly (eg i can mount the phone behind my monitor and it charges itself and turns on and off automatically) it'll be even better.

This is what I use as well. The software can be a slight pain in the ass, but once you get used to a handful of quirks it's pretty smooth sailing. I've used it for teams calls, web-based barcode scanning testing, etc. Never had it cut out on me due to some arbitrary limitation. Having a webcam on a proper tripod makes it really easy to control variables in testing of things like barcode scanning and other image recognition tasks as well. Being able to swap lenses and manually control the entire system can make a huge difference for my purposes. I will tape my test samples to a whiteboard (sometimes with varying backgrounds) and place the camera at a fixed location from it. I don't go much further than the camera and basic software. I don't have patience for backdrops, lights, finicky software chains, etc. I simply do M50=>canon software=>windows webcam device.

I'm using a Canon M50 just with the webcam software. (I don't think it has clean HDMI out so capture card won't help with this camera.) I've since started recording some of my courses directly from OBS. [0] The framerate probably suffers, but I've never had thermal/overheating issues. 0 - https://store.metasnake.com/view/courses/a1a19c9e-af18-4615-...

Enterprise-grade home wifi and networking paired with a generous (1gig) ISP connection we don't really need but is never slow. High-end espresso machine that makes coffee in one button but with all the settings configurable (grind, volume, temperature, etc) Canon M50 SLR camera permanently mounted for Zoom calls - got the Mk1 open box, looks amazing on calls, wasn't insanely expensive (~$500). Tesla Model 3P. We just got a flat at home, they came out and swapped the tire for a temp one within 2hrs and then came to the home the next day to repair/replace the flat. Sadly needed replacing but all we paid for the whole experience in the end was the cost of the tire and that was cheaper than local SF places (which are $$). There's so many other great things about Tesla: it's practically maintenance free, the P edition is faster than a Lambo off the line, it's super safe in a crash, carbon neutral when paired with renewable power source, etc. Might be out of scope for this Ask HN but I just feel it's worth every $ I paid for it, and it's apparently only lost about 5% of it's value in 2.5 years which is unheard of in the car industry.

Disclaimer: I'm generally cheap. Pilot G2 pen - I bought it after someone recommended it and it is indeed a pleasure to write with it. Ryzen 5 2400G - it has a good enough GPU to play some nice games with Steam Proton. In future I would like to make a Mini-ITX build for it. Canon EOS M100 with pan cake lens - it's almost as small as a compact, but has big APS-C sensor. I bought a used body. I noticed lately how my old photos are so much better then later ones. The difference between a compact and a first gen Pixel is noticeable. With this it's even further. But with pandemics there was no much use of it lately.

Canon EOS M can be bought for around $100 used and shoot 1440p raw with Magic Lantern. Also it can use cheap old 16mm film lenses with crop mode.