Even less than a year ago, if somebody had predicted that an important new area for camera makers would be developing webcam software for people to broadcast live from their homes, it would have elicited nudges and winks from more vulgar commentators. The impact of Covid -19, however, and the now unstoppable spread of home working, means that communicating via Skype or Zoom or YouTube is suddenly very mainstream, and Nikon is the latest company to release specialist software.
The company’s Webcam Utility software turns your DSLR or Z-series mirrorless camera into a webcam but is only at beta stage – so there might still be a few bugs. If you are an adventurous Windows user, however, and don’t mind a few possible glitches (there is no MacOS version at the moment) it is available now and free to download.
Nikon joins Olympus, Canon, Panasonic and Fujifilm in bringing out webcam software and the full list of supported Nikon cameras is as follows:
DSLRs
Nikon D6
Nikon D850
Nikon D780
Nikon D500
Nikon D7500
Nikon D5600
Mirrorless
Nikon Z7
Nikon Z6
Nikon Z5
Nikon Z50
Once installed on your Windows PC, connect to your camera via a USB lead and you can enjoy far better picture quality than you’d get with a bog-standard webcam built into your screen. System requirements as follows:
- Microsoft Windows 10 Home
- Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
- Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise
- Note: Pre-installed versions.
- 64-bit edition (32-bit systems not supported).
