Elgato Facecam vs Razer Kiyo Pro and Razer Kiyo
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Specifications
Build Quality
Image Quality
Software
Verdict
Specifications
Elgato Facecam
Max resolution and frame rate: 1080p, 60 FPS.
Video format: UYVY.
Connection: USB 3.0. Type-C side goes into device. Type-A goes into PC.
Focus: Fixed focus.
Field of View: 82 degrees.
Notes: No microphone is built into the Elgato Facecam.
I bought my Elgato Facecam for its launch price of $200. Elgato’s site is linked to see its current pricing.
Razer Kiyo Pro
Max resolution and frame rate: 1080p, 60 FPS.
Video format: UYVY.
Connection: USB 3.0. Type-C side goes into device. Type-A goes into PC.
Focus: Auto or manual focus.
Field of View: 80, 90, or 103 degrees.
Notes: HDR effect is available in Razer Synapse. A field of view change is also available in Synapse, though it creates a jarring fisheye effect.
I bought my Razer Kiyo Pro for its launch price of $200. Its Amazon page is linked to see its current pricing.
Razer Kiyo
Max resolution and frame rate: 1080p, 30 FPS or 720p, 60 FPS.
Video format: MJPEG or H.264. (YUY2 available at 480p)
Connection: USB 2.0 Type-A. Cable is non-detachable.
Focus: Auto or manual focus.
Field of View: 81.6 degrees.
Notes: Has a 5600K ring light attached to the device.
I bought my Razer Kiyo for its launch price of $100. Its Amazon page is linked to see its current pricing.
Comparison table
| Webcam | Max Resolution | Connection Type | Focus | Field of View |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elgato Facecam | 1080p, 60 FPS | USB 3.0 Type-A to Type-C | Fixed | 82 Degrees |
| Razer Kiyo Pro | 1080p, 60 FPS | USB 3.0 Type-A to Type-C | Auto or Manual | 80, 90, or 103 Degrees |
| Razer Kiyo | 1080p, 30 FPS | USB 2.0 Type-A | Auto or Manual | 81.6 Degrees |
Build Quality
Left to right: Elgato Facecam, Razer Kiyo Pro, Razer Kiyo.
Each of these devices is made mostly of plastic and they all have 1/4th inch tripod threading. The Kiyo Pro has two threads - one on the bottom of the monitor clip and the webcam itself. The Kiyo Pro and Facecam come with privacy covers as well.
More interesting are the functionality differences. The Elgato Facecam has the longest wire at about 82 inches. It also has excellent adjustability in terms of rotation and tilting up and down. This makes it the most convenient to use and angle properly.
All three webcams can be attached to a tripod.
The Razer Kiyo Pro has similar rotation and tilting adjustability. It has a different locking mechanism on the monitor clip to swivel, but the end result lets you angle it just as well as the Facecam. The problem is the wire is really short at only 60 inches, making it a pain to put on a monitor if it’s not right next to your computer.
The Razer Kiyo can only be tilted up and down, but its advantage is the built-in ring light. It’s not particularly bright, but if you have no other lighting sources, it does make a difference.
Image Quality
In this section, I’ll compare these webcams in several categories.
I’ll start with out the box performance with automatic settings and no studio lights. Then I’ll switch to optimal lighting conditions with manual settings and compare their sharpness, color accuracy, exposure and dynamic range, and focus. At the end will be a summary of the image quality.
Out the box performance
In the above shots I only used OBS and set each webcam to automatic settings. I wouldn’t say any of them look “good”, but the Kiyo Pro’s has the least glaring issues.
The Kiyo overexposes the back wall with the sun spot to the point of artifacting, and the Elgato Facecam colors are very red. That said, all the shots are very dark, and there’s not a lot the Kiyo Pro or Facecam can do about that without a legit lighting source.
The original Razer Kiyo has a trick up its sleeve with its ring light. That gives it the edge out the box, though I still don’t recommend using any webcam without adequate lighting.
Razer Kiyo with its ring light on in day time.
Razer Kiyo with its ring light on at night.
Sharpness
Starting with these images, I optimized the footage with optimal lighting and settings. And I downloaded the Elgato Camera Hub app. Mostly it just lets you change UVC settings that you can already access in OBS, but most importantly it lets you toggle the noise reduction filter off.
I’ll talk more about that in the software section, but here’s a quick shot of what the Facecam looked like with the noise reduction filter on. The image is super soft.
Before downloading Camera Hub.
After downloading Camera Hub and turning off noise reduction.
The sharpest image is the original Razer Kiyo, next is the Elgato Facecam, and the softest is the Razer Kiyo Pro. The Logitech Brio, a device that came out back in 2017 is far sharper than any of these, so these results are pretty disappointing.
Color Accuracy
The Razer Kiyo Pro has the best colors of these devices. So far, it has the best color of any webcam I’ve used.
We’ve got to address the brutal sea green and yellow on the Elgato Facecam. Here’s the deal.
Like most webcams, the Elgato Facecam and Razer Kiyo allow you adjust the white balance manually. However, also like most webcams the manual adjustments don’t give you access to all the colors available to the device with auto white balance.. So no matter how you move the slider, the image will always be either too blue or too yellow.
It’s really pick your poison with the Facecam. It’s either too red on auto white balance, or too blue or yellow with manual. The Razer Kiyo is pretty decent with auto white balance, but you’ll have to deal with the colors changing automatically when the sun shifts.
The Razer Kiyo Pro’s manual settings let you get much closer to auto white balance by retaining most of the colors. The Kiyo Pro excels reproducing the color of skin tone, the wall in the background, and pretty much everything in the shot.
Exposure and Dynamic Range
I like the exposure levels of the Elgato Facecam the most. The Kiyo Pro has very strong contrast which makes dark colors extra dark. The Kiyo has the same effect, but even more intense. My hair just looks black on the Kiyo.
By default, the Elgato Facecam is like this as well, but this is the first webcam I’ve used where the contrast controls actually work well - rather than being a fake post-processing effect. Decreasing the contrast on the Facecam allowed me to make the image overall much brighter without the overexposure of my face that happens to the Kiyo and Kiyo Pro.
The Kiyo does the worst here in the above shots and it struggles with bright sunlight in the daytime.
Razer Kiyo Pro HDR Mode
While I avoid the HDR mode on the Razer Kiyo Pro, it does have use when you’re lit from the back. The point of it is to even out the harshest bright light with the darkest shadows in an image. It works okay, but it comes at the cost of sharpness, artifacting, and a frame rate reduction to 30 FPS.
Focus
The Razer Kiyo’s autofocus isn’t that good or fast, but it’s still the only functional one here.
The Kiyo Pro’s autofocus is so bad with how much it pulses and seeks that Razer had to release a firmware update to patch it. But that update just bricked a bunch of people’s webcams instead of fixing the issue.
The Elgato Facecam has a fixed focus lens, so you’ll never be able to sharpen text close up to the device, and things too far away will always be out of focus. It’s an understandable compromise to avoid the issues of the Kiyo Pro, but this makes the device unusable for doing product reviews or for makeup artists.
Image Quality Summary
I can't say one device is straight up better than the others in every category. But overall, I prefer the image of the Razer Kiyo Pro. Mainly for its color accuracy. It’s definitely lacking in the sharpness department, but if you really want a step up from that in sharpness I recommend the Logitech Brio.
The Elgato Facecam’s shoddy colors, grainy image, and lackluster sharpness don’t do anything to put it over the Razer Kiyo Pro.
The original Razer Kiyo is a good budget option if you’re okay with 30 FPS and sticking with auto white balance.
Software
Camera Hub noise reduction filter on.
Camera Hub noise reduction filter off. ISO too high causes grain.
I like Elgato's Camera Hub software over Razer Synapse. But it's not perfect.
You can adjust the usual webcam settings like exposure, white balance, and gain but they're in more accurate, "real camera" jargon instead.
Exposure from the UVC (USB video class) controls that OBS uses is shutter speed, gain is actually controlled by the brightness slider and it translates to ISO. And white balance is listed in Kelvin which makes a lot more sense.
The only thing you can't change in OBS that makes Camera Hub absolutely essential is the noise reduction filter. On my device, without Camera Hub, this was defaulted to on with no way to turn it off. It makes the image unacceptably soft. So if for no other reason, I'd download Camera Hub just to make sure it's off.
Camera Hub settings saving error.
There are still some bugs with Camera Hub. First off, you should be able to save the settings from Camera Hub to the Facecam so they persist past a reboot, but that never quite worked for me.
Secondly, if you leave the noise reduction filter off and use too high of an ISO or automatic settings in OBS, the grain can increase so much in low light scenarios that it causes encoding errors.
Lastly, the Facecam froze at least 5 times just while recording the footage for this review.
Adjusting Razer Kiyo Pro field of view in Synapse.
Razer Synapse was a lot worse and buggier when I first reviewed the Kiyo Pro, and it's improved but it still has a glaring issue.
Unlike Elgato Camera Hub where you just can't access the preview window while using the webcam in other software, with Synapse can't edit the Kiyo Pro's settings at all while it's in use. So you have to deactivate it in one to use it in the other every time.
Synapse lets you utilize the basic UVC controls, but the real reason to use it is you can only adjust the field of view and and enable the HDR effect here.
As I stated, I don't think the HDR is worth using, and the field of view just causes a fisheye effect.
Razer Synapse with Razer Kiyo.
I learned through trial and error, with or without Synapse, some of the settings save to the device itself. So you can lock the exposure, focus, etc. and even if you plug it into a new computer without Synapse, it will default to those saved settings.
But the Razer Synapse exclusive settings (the 90 and 103 FOV and HDR effect) only become active when Razer Synapse is open.
The Razer Kiyo doesn't need Synapse at all and just uses the basic UVC controls. Personally, I prefer to control as much as possible through OBS.
Verdict
Of the Elgato Facecam, Razer Kiyo Pro, and Razer Kiyo, I recommend the Razer Kiyo Pro. Its colors are great, and it performs well in lots of different lighting scenarios.
The Elgato Facecam’s colors are just not very good on either automatic or manual settings, and the sharpness isn’t enough of an improvement over the Kiyo Pro to recommend it. For that, I’d go with a 4K webcam like the Logitech Brio (my review) which is my favorite device.
The Razer Kiyo is a good “budget” option and it’s the sharpest device here. It just has white balance issues on manual settings. If you’re going the budget route, finding a C920 on sale is what I would try to do until you’ve saved enough to get either the Kiyo Pro or Logitech Brio.
Amazon Listings
Razer Kiyo Pro: https://amzn.to/3ss5ViH
Razer Kiyo: https://amzn.to/3ruvZd9
Elgato Facecam: https://amzn.to/2Vss8Ta
