38

I have a problem recently my cam (built in) is really really dark when using Skype or cheese I can barely see anything, Only when I spot a light on the cam I can see it but really dark

I have a Sony Vaio F127FD , I am running Ubuntu 10.10 (Desktop edition) fully updated

Note: the webcam was fine I guess the problem has something to do with the latest updates

Koen
  • 532
bhappy
  • 697

7 Answers7

38

Install guvcview (still works on 20.04, 22.04):

sudo apt install guvcview

On Image Control tab, there is a brightness slider control.

If Image Control is empty

Open the Video Controls tab and click on the Device dropdown, selecting the correct device.

Rael Gugelmin Cunha
  • 6,912
23

If not already installed, install the Video for Linux 2 Universal Control Panel (v4l2ucp), that will allow you to adjust your video settings

mvario
  • 750
9

What worked for me (on Debian, probably also works with Ubuntu):

sudo apt install xawtv
v4lctl bright 100%
a3nm
  • 473
8

Unfortunately the control panel, v4l2ucp, has been removed in 20.04 along with all other qt4 applications. The package is still available here, and it installs just fine as long as you have qt4 available from a third-party repo like the one in this answer.

krispy
  • 383
6

I had a same issue in Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04 and struggled a lot with this issue. Changing brightness is certainly the wrong answer.

My camera has its own logic which calculates the brightness according the light conditions (the proportion of the darkest and brightest part of the view).

In this case Guvcview is a good solution

$ sudo apt install guvcview

On Cap. Image tab, there are:

  • Exposure, Auto dropdown: change it to Manual Mode
  • Exposure (Absolute) slider: increase its value carefully till you get a beautiful bright image. It was 320 for me.

I had to do it once and it fixed the issue.

Zoltán Süle
  • 1,169
2

You can install cameractrls:

  1. #!/usr/bin/env bash
flatpak install 'https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/hu.irl.cameractrls.flatpakref'

  2. Info: runtime org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Breeze-Dark branch 3.22 is end-of-life, with reason:
   This theme has been replaced by org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Breeze, see README for workaround on using system color schemes. https://github.com/flathub/org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Breeze#workarounds
Info: applications using this extension:
   hu.irl.cameractrls

    hu.irl.cameractrls permissions:
    ipc     fallback-x11     wayland     x11     devices    file access [1]
    

    [1] /run/spnav.sock:ro


    ID                                Branch          Op          Remote           Download

    

      

    1. [✓] org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Breeze          3.22            u           flathub            5.5 kB / 192.6 kB
      2. 

    2. [✓] hu.irl.cameractrls                stable          i           flathub          427.3 kB / 530.9 kB
      3.

Its GUI offers exposure adjustments, which shall affect the perceived brightness:

Screenshot

RokeJulianLockhart
  • 245
1

I had a similar issue with my webcam being too dark on Ubuntu 22.04, and this solution worked for me:

  1. Install v4l-utils:

    sudo apt install v4l-utils

  2. Find your webcam device:

    v4l2-ctl --list-devices

    Look for something like /dev/video0.

  3. Set the brightness: You can use either of these commands:

    v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0 --set-ctrl=brightness=128

    or, if your webcam is the default device:

    v4l2-ctl --set-ctrl brightness=128

    Replace 128 with a value between 0 (dark) and 255 (bright).

  4. Test your webcam in an app like Cheese to see the effect.

Adjust the brightness value until it looks right.

Waqleh
  • 911