Finally figured out why my webcam looked so bad (it was the ceiling fan)

I spent like 6 months frustrated because my face was always weirdly lit on video calls. No matter what I did with my ring light or desk lamp, it just looked off. Then last week I happened to notice my ceiling fan was spinning right above me and casting this weird flickering shadow. I turned it off and suddenly my camera quality was way better. Has anyone else dealt with weird lighting stuff from unexpected sources?

3 comments

3 Comments

finley_smith16h ago

That ceiling fan thing gets people all the time since it's basically a strobe light you don't notice until it's gone. The spinning blades create a flicker that messes with the frame rate on your webcam, making everything look wavy and dim.

ivan46215h ago

Yeah my buddy Tom has a ceiling fan right above his desk and I never noticed it until we were on a group call and someone asked if he was sitting in a disco... It was like a weird flickering wave across his whole face. The camera made it look like the room was pulsing or something, but in person it was totally normal. I never would have guessed a fan could do that to a webcam. Makes you wonder how many other things in a room mess with video calls that we just don't see.

kimdixon13h ago

Is it really that big of a deal though?