camera obscura

I have finally reached success, sort of, in my quest for a camera for my computer.

When the pandemic began and meetings on Zoom entered my consciousness, I searched online for a simple camera to plug into a USB port in my computer. I bought one, and it works, but the cable is only 4 feet long, too short to put it in an agreeable spot.

So I went back on line and ordered an extension cable - 3 feet long, which was barely long enough. It worked: for about six months. Then when I plugged it in, Zoom would fail to recognize that a camera was there. The camera alone worked fine; it was the cable.

So I bought another one. It too worked fine for about six months and then failed.

I left a bad review and bought a longer cable. It didn't work at all.

Figuring the problem was that the cable might not be camera-enabled, I tried to find another cable that was camera-enabled and was also - which was mostly incompatible with being camera-enabled - a USB-A male to female port cable. Eventually I found one. But, though it said it was camera enabled, it didn't work at all either.

At that point I figured the only solution was to get a new camera. But few of the likely cameras had info in their description saying how long the cable was, and those which did the cable was too short. The photos that you can close-up on didn't show the cables at all.

But eventually I found one, and today was my first opportunity to see if it works. It does, and the cable is long enough. Only problem is that, although I'm placing it in the same spot as the previous camera, its viewshot is much more close-up. If there's a way to modify that, I don't know what it is.

But at least for the moment it works.