The trials and tribulations of turning a real camera into a webcam

Dieter was too kind to address the big, camera-obscuring elephant in the room: how for several minutes, instead of my face, he’d see a giant reversed Sony Imaging Edge webcam logo — a huge white W on an orange square set against a not-quite-black background. Finally, after at least four months of the big W, he politely asked, “Alex, what’s your address?”“Why?”“So I can send you an HDMI adapter.” He said it with that unique Midwestern clip that says, “I am being very polite and gracious, but you should know I may also commit a murder in the near future.”Dieter, and indeed all my colleagues at The Verge, had been forced to stare at that ugly W because I wanted to convert my very expensive Sony A7 III mirrorless camera into a webcam. Importantly, you then have to open an app that uses your camera, and then turn on the camera, and then wait for Sony Imaging Edge Webcam to start running before your video will actually, finally appear on the screen. I’ll continue to tinker even as Dieter’s eye twitches and I inevitably get roasted on Twitter.Trying to turn a real camera into a webcam will not be worth the money or time I’ve spent thus far and will probably continue to spend.