The good news is that the Studio Display 15.5 firmware appears to have improved the Studio Display’s webcam performance a bit.
The bad news is that there’s apparently still some work to be done.
The firmware update, which arrived as part of macOS Monterey 12.4. During the beta phase, Apple continued to iterate on updates to the display’s built-in webcam as well as to its stability and performance. With the third beta of macOS Monterey 12.4, users got their first peek at the camera improvements.
The changes were subtle but noticeable. Side-by-side, there do appear to be improvements in the image quality.
Throughout tests in the FaceTime app, QuickTime, and in Zoom, the updated firmware offered greatly improved skin tone reproduction. A face that was red before the update had a more natural color afterward. The details also looked less noisy, and it’s thought that Apple reduced the noise with additional smoothing.
Center Stage seems to offer improved performance following the update, and the application doesn’t crop in as tightly on a face, leaving a bit more room above the user’s head. Whether this is an improvement of not comes down to personal preference, and Apple seems yet to offer this as something the user has direct control over.
Over the course of continued testing, the camera’s image quality doesn’t seem have have progressed much from its beta days. That means the 15.5 update has some improvement from the firmware the monitor shipped with, but isn’t a magical solution to Apple’s subpar camera issues. Unless you are putting the images side-by-side, it will be hard to spot much difference.
If you’ve installed the macOS Monterey 12.4 and Studio Display 15.5 firmware and have any feedback to offer, please let us know about your experience in the comments.
Via AppleInsider