How can I set up a Canon EOS camera to be a webcam?

Question

I have a Canon EOS camera. I'm accessing a website that wants to access the camera connected to my computer.

Even though my Canon EOS is connected, it wasn't detected by the browser. How do I enable it to make its display appear in the browser?

The output should be like the image below:

The above image wasn't captured with the Canon. It was only using a cheap web camera.

Answer 1

2020 brought us (among other things) the EOS webcam utility.

Officially the following EOS models are supported:

EOS-1D X Mark II
EOS-1D X Mark III
EOS 5D Mark IV
EOS 5DS
EOS 5DS R
EOS 6D Mark II
EOS 7D Mark II
EOS 77D
EOS 80D
EOS 90D
EOS Rebel SL2
EOS Rebel SL3
EOS Rebel T6
EOS Rebel T6i
EOS Rebel T7
EOS Rebel T7i
EOS Rebel T100

However, I managed to get my 550D (EOS Rebel T2i from 2010) to work with Microsoft Teams and Jitsi (via a webbrowser). Note that the 550D is not on the list, so the supported camera list seems to be just a guideline.

Some points that might help when setting this up:

• After connecting/switching on my camera I had to restart the application that needed the camera (Microsoft Teams and my browser in my case). Only then it showed up as an available camera.
• The instructions state that the camera should be in Movie mode. I found that it also works in other modes.
• In Movie mode I could not turn off the camera screen to save energy. In other modes (e.g. Av) I could.
• Exposure controls work, but only when the camera screen is on. So I now:
  • Connect camera and select it as the active webcam in the application
  • Turn on camera screen
  • Set exposure as desired
  • Turn off the camera screen
  • Start using it as a regular webcam

Answer 2

Under Linux you can simply install gphoto2 and v4l2loopback-dkms (package name might vary).

Then simply run:

sudo modprobe v4l2loopback exclusive_caps=1 card_label="GPhoto2 Webcam"

Find out which webcam device it uses, in my case it was /dev/video2 and run:

gphoto2 --stdout --capture-movie | ffmpeg -i - -vcodec rawvideo -pix_fmt yuv420p -threads 0 -f v4l2 /dev/video2

And there you go.
The camera is now a normal video device and you can use it anywhere just like a normal webcam.
Should work with any Canon EOS that has live view and a lot of other cameras.

Source (Compatible models listed here, but a lot more than that seem to work too.)

Answer 3

Canon's beta software turns recent mirrorless, SLR, and point-and-shoot cameras into a webcam. Here's what you need to know.

With USB webcams in short supply and demand skyrocketing due to the sharp spike in remote work, Canon has stepped in with a solution. Its new software, the EOS Webcam Utility, is available as a free download, and turns your Canon EOS SLR, mirrorless camera, or PowerShot compact into a USB webcam—assuming you have a recent model, of course.

The software is in beta, and with a recent update supports both 64-bit Windows 10 systems and macOS computers running High Sierra, Mojave, and Catalina.

It's limited to recent models, and while there are some low-cost options on the list, you can't plug in a $100 PowerShot Elph. Support is limited to G series PowerShots and interchangeable lens models.

But, unlike webcams, you can click over to a retailer and order many models for speedy delivery to your home office.

The Windows version of the software promises to work with pretty much any app where you can select your input camera, but Mac owners are a bit limited.

I installed the beta on my 2017 iMac and connected an EOS R mirorrless camera. Setup was as painless as promised, though I did have to reboot the system after installation. And it works easily with Google Meet. Canon states that Zoom and Skype aren't supported. I can verify that Skype doesn't work, as the latest version killed support for anything other than my Mac's webcam.

I was able to log into Zoom without issue, though it could be because I installed this hack on my system to use real cameras with Zoom. If you're comfortable going into Terminal and installing Xcode, it's a workaround.

Supported Cameras The EOS Webcam Utility works with the entire spate of current-generation EOS models—Canon's branding for its SLR and mirrorless lines—and a handful of their predecessors. This is good news if you've bought a Canon camera in recent memory, but leaves owners of older bodies in the cold. If you already have one of the following cameras, you're set.

Supported Cameras

Answer 4

I've done this previously in Windows with a Cannon EOS 5D Mk II, and my kludgy solution was to use a combination of the live view function of the Cannon EOS Utility, and some software to turn a portion of the screen into a virtual web cam, I believe I used ManyCam for that.

Basically I connected the camera to the PC and fired up the Cannon EOS Utility then clicked Camera settings/Remote shooting. Within that I selected the Live View shoot option to display a view through the camera on the screen. (I set the lens to manual focus, and the Focus in the 'Remote Live View window' to Face Detection Live mode, that got rid of overlays on the preview image)

Then I used ManyCam to define that area of the screen as a web cam.

It helped having two monitors for this as I could have the 'Remote Live View window' on one screen, and the application I was using the virtual web cam with on the other, you'll likely be pressed for space trying to do this on only one screen.

The less kludgy solution would be to connect the video out port on the camera to a video capture interface connected to the computer, but I've not tried that personally, and it would mean purchasing extra hardware if you don't have such an interface already.

Answer 5

If your camera has clean HDMI output, you could use an HDMI capture card or device to transform the HDMI output into a USB webcam.

Another method on OSX that might work with any camera capable of tethered liveview is to use the open source package Camera Live and the free abandonware (no development since 2013), Camtwist. Camera Live can turn the USB tethered liveview into a syphon source, and Camtwist can present the syphon source to the system as a USB webcam source. To get it to work with something like Zoom, however, you may need to unsign the package with codesign:

sudo codesign --remove-signature /Applications/zoom.us.app/

If you don't have codesign installed, you may need to install XCode to get it. Be aware of the security implications.

You hook up your camera to the computer with USB, as if you were tethering. Don't use a video drive mode. Then launch Camera Live, and hopefully your camera is one of the supported ones :). Wait until Camera Live displays the camera as active.

Launch CamTwist, and in the Main Window, highlight Syphon as a video source, press the Select button, and then from the Settings Syphon Server drop-down, select Camera Live.

From there, you can launch Zoom, and select CamTwist as your video source.

See also this youtube video by Kim Farrelly demonstrating how he got his Fuji X-T2 to be his webcam in Zoom, which was the main source for this information.