Webcam recommendation, with decent control?

[ebastler]

With video conferencing having become so common these days, I intend to get a separate webcam to put on top of my main screen -- to replace the one in my laptop which looks at me sideways and from below. While I am at this, I would not mind a camera which gives me a bit more flexibility in controlling the picture, via its own driver or control panel:

• The ability to zoom in on the camera level would be nice, to avoid the rather wide-angle view most of these small cameras provide.
  
• As would be a way to adjust the automated exposure (brightness) control, e.g. in a situation with a very bright background.
  
• A camera with a large f-stop and limited depth of field (and user-controllable focus setting) would be luxury!
  
• Alternatively, does anybody make a stereoscopic camera or one with Kinect-style depth sensing, which can separate foreground from background based on proper depth measurement? (Many of the video conferencing programs offer options to blur or replace the background, based on analyzing the 2D image alone, but I have not seen one which actually works well. Short of setting up an actual greenscreen behind me, a camera which can do this properly, based on additional information, would be nice. But this is really in the "optional gimmick" category...)
  

Any recommendations? Thank you very much!

[Zbig]

I've recently got a Logitech StreamCam. I'm still not sure it was wise to spend this much on a webcam but I'm from the "buy good and buy once" camp so yeah, anyway, it's done.

Addressing your requirements, one by one:

• You can use digital zoom from within the "Logi Capture" software. There's also a smart framing feature that fills most of the frame with your face and and follows it automatically using digital zoom. *
• Exposure controls (manual/backlight compensation) are available in "Logi Capture" *
• The lens is fast at f/2.0 but the small physical sensor size makes the Depth of Field large anyway. You should expect pretty much of all the junk behind you to come out just as sharp as your face unless you're focusing at extremely close distances. There is a manual focus option in "Logi Capture" (*)
  

Note:
Wherever I mention a feature exposed in "Logi Capture" application (*), it means it's either software-based or software-enabled. The app allows for recording video and snapshots from within itself it that's all you need. However, if you want to use these (*) features e.g. in a video conferencing app, on Windows the "Logi Capture " app can act as a kind of proxy, by exposing its own, processed video stream. Then you could set Skype/Teams/Zoom/Webex/whatever to use that stream. On macOS however, this function it not (yet?) available so it's either recording from within Logi Capture using the bells and whistles or using raw video stream from third party apps on Mac.

[NiHaoMike]

Build your own from a Raspberry Pi Zero: