Webcam test
The picture is only half of it. This also asks your camera for the best it can do rather than accepting the low-resolution default most sites get, and reports what actually came back — which is often the difference between a camera people call blurry and the same camera set up properly.
- Resolution—
- Aspect ratio—
- Frame rate it reports—
The still stays in this page and is never uploaded.
Did the picture look the way it should?
What the numbers mean
Resolution is the size actually being delivered, read from the decoded video rather than from what the camera claims. This is the number to compare against the specification.
Aspect ratio is derived from it. A 4:3 result from a camera sold as widescreen usually means the driver is cropping or the requested size was not available.
Frame rate it reports is what the camera says it is sending. It is a claim, not a measurement — the frame rate test is the measurement, and the two disagree more often than you would expect.
Common faults, and what causes them
| What you see | Usual cause |
|---|---|
| Black picture, light on | Privacy shutter, or the lens is covered |
| Black picture, light off | Another application holds the camera |
| Very dark, noisy picture | Room light, not the camera |
| Soft focus at close range | Fixed-focus camera used too close |
| Green or purple cast | Driver white balance, or a USB bandwidth problem |
| Frozen after a few seconds | USB power saving, or an overloaded hub |
| Upside down | Driver rotation setting, common on some laptops |
Windows 11
- Permission. Settings → Privacy and security → Camera. Both “Camera access” and “Let desktop apps access your camera” must be on, and browsers appear in their own list.
- Only one application at a time. Windows shares cameras poorly. If the picture is black with the indicator light off, something else has it — Teams and Zoom keep running in the tray after their window closes.
- USB bandwidth. A camera sharing a hub with an external drive can drop to a lower resolution or freeze. Plug it directly into the machine, and prefer a port on the back of a desktop.
- Some laptops ship a camera utility with its own effects and rotation settings that override everything else.
macOS
- Permission. System Settings → Privacy and Security → Camera, then confirm the browser is enabled. macOS shows a green dot in the menu bar whenever a camera is live.
- Continuity Camera may quietly take over: if your iPhone is nearby, macOS can select it instead of the built-in camera. It appears in the device list above under its own name.
- Centre Stage and Portrait mode, in Control Centre while the camera is running, crop and blur the picture system-wide. They are the usual reason a picture looks lower resolution than the camera reports.
Before you decide the camera is faulty
Cover the obvious in this order: the physical shutter, the light in the room, whether anything else has the camera open, and the cable. Between them they account for most cameras that arrive here described as broken.
Common questions
Is my video uploaded anywhere?
No. The stream is rendered by your browser directly from the camera, and the still you can take is drawn into a canvas in the page. Neither leaves your machine, there is no server to receive them, and closing the tab discards both.
Why is my resolution lower than the camera is supposed to do?
Because something asked for less. Browsers hand out a modest default — often 640 by 480 — unless a page asks for more, and this page asks for 1920 by 1080. If you still get less, the camera cannot do more over the connection it has, the driver is limiting it, or another application already opened it at a lower size and the camera cannot change while it is shared.
Why am I mirrored?
Because a mirrored preview is easier to use — moving left moves your image left. It is a display choice, not a property of the camera, and it applies only to what you see. Other people on a call see you unmirrored, which is why your writing looks backwards to you and correct to them. The toggle above switches the preview.
The camera works here but not in Zoom, Teams or Discord.
Those applications select their own camera, separately from the system, and only one application can hold a camera at a time on most systems. Close anything else that might be using it, then check the video settings inside the application rather than in Windows or macOS.
Why is the picture dark or grainy?
Almost always light rather than hardware. A webcam sensor is small, and in low light it compensates by amplifying, which produces noise, and by slowing the shutter, which produces blur and a low frame rate. A lamp in front of you does more than any setting.