Webcams

Why Webcams Look Grainy in Low Light

A webcam can look clean and detailed during the day, then become grainy, soft, or strangely smeared in the evening. The camera has not necessarily developed a fault. In many cases, it is trying to make a usable picture from too little light. That matters because a webcam cannot simply make darkness disappear. When less light reaches its image sensor, the useful image signal becomes weaker. The camera can brighten that weak signal electronically, expose each video frame for longer, combine information across frames, or apply heavier noise reduction. Each choice helps in one way and creates a trade-off somewhere else.