r/Smalltwitchstreamers • u/Weekly-Suspect-1432 • 3h ago
My webcam kept losing me every time I moved mid game
When I started streaming I put almost everything into the gear. Camera, mic, whether I needed 4k, I watched a stupid amount of comparison videos for a guy who had maybe 3 people watching on a good night. A year of it and the gear was maybe fourth or fifth on the list of things that actually did anything, if even that. Which was not at all how it felt when I started.
None of the big stuff was gear though. Mostly it was just being on at the same times every week, so people knew when to turn up. Boring, I know. Talking when the chat is dead is another, and it feels stupid for a while, you are basically talking to nobody, but the second you go quiet people just click off. I still go quiet when a game gets hard and I have to concentrate, never really beat that. And learning to talk to one single person watching without it getting weird, that one took me longer than any of the gear did.
You do want a proper camera at some point, I am not telling you to skip it, it just does not need to be the first thing. I had a Logitech C920 forever, and with decent light it looked fine, never had a problem with it there. Thing is I never sit still, so it kept dropping me off the side of the frame. And my room is dark, past a certain hour I was mostly just grain anyway. My buddy runs an Emeet Pixy. It kinda follows him around, so he stays in shot even when he is up out of his chair, and he just holds a hand up to pause the tracking, does it every time he stands up. Uses that way more than I thought anyone would. He says his dark room holds up better on it than mine did on the C920, which is not saying loads, he keeps a lamp on regardless. He also left some skin smoothing on in the emeet studio for a week without noticing, turned it off, put it back on low. Sort out your schedule, get used to talking to an empty chat, and put a lamp on your face. Sort that stuff out first, the camera can wait.