I guess you can (officially) use your fancy Canon camera as a webcam studio now

When the pandemic slammed into our shores a couple of years ago, many of us were shoo-ed inside, doomed to endless Zoom meetings. At the time, Canon released a beta of its EOS Webcam Utility, and then seemed to pretty much forget about it. Until today. In a ‘geez, Canon, this would have been helpful two years ago’ kind of move, the company released the EOS Webcam Utility Pro software, so you can finally show up crisply high-def with Canon’s blessing.

Canon claims that ‘millions of users’ have already been using the EOS Webcam Utility for streaming and meetings, and its ‘pro’ installment of the software lets you give the company money (yay!) and ‘unlock exclusive features that take video communication and customization capabilities to the next level.’

Forgive the sarcasm; Canon’s EOS cameras are legitimately high-end and high-quality products and its lens lineup continues to be world-class, so if you really want to highlight every pore and every stray eyelash, Canon’s got your, er, front.

The subscription version of the software will set you back $4.99 per month, or $50 per year. It enables you to hook up several cameras, unlocks wireless connectivity, and gives more camera and content control. It ups the framerate available to 60 fps, and you can push the video streams to multiple channels at once, such as YouTube, Facebook Live, and others. The new software also includes layout options, watermarking, scene transitions, and other stuff.

Now, if those things were important to you, you have probably already discovered the free OBS software and a slew of other, paid-for solutions that have various degrees of sophistication and feature sets. But, you know. Canon.