Show-me webcam: Webcamera for Raspberry Pi Zero W
With standard camera mounting gear

This firmware transforms your Raspberry Pi into a high quality webcam. It works reliably, boots quickly, and gets out of your way.

• There hasn't been real development leaps in the commercial webcams in the past 30 years.
• Global COVID-19 pandemic caused a shortage of webcams, so decided to build my own for my new home work premises.
• Commercial webcams are usually made of plastic, small static non-glass-lenses and ineffective integrated microphones, offering no upgrade paths for hardware, should I want to change a component ¹.
• An option would be to use a DSLR camera setup with a capture card, but that starts to get expensive and would be an overkill for the frequent webcamming I do. Also, I couldn't just upgrade a component in that setup if I wanted to.
• With this Raspberry based setup, I don't need to sacrifice anything else than auto focus, which is not needed for static conference webcamming anyway.
• A good overview by Jeff Geerling on pros/cons of the HQ Pi Camera.

Acquire the hardware, I used:

• SmallRig ballhead and clamp. With this combo, I can attach and position the camera however I want. I already had Elgato Key Light Air and I could easily clamp the camera to its stand.
• Raspberry Pi Mounting Plate for High Quality Camera. This is the "frame" to which I attach the Pi Zero WH and Camera Module to.
• Raspberry Pi Zero Camera Adapter. RPi Zero board has physically smaller camera lane port, so this is needed.
• Raspberry Pi Zero WH (with pre-soldered header). Webcam setup does not need wireless capabilities or pre-soldered header. I chose both because wanted to keep my options open on repurposing the board for a future project where both are needed.
• Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera Module. Needed.
• Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera CS Lens (6mm wide angle). On a hindsight, would've gone straight for a M12 lens based on this review. Select appropriate lens for video conferencing. I chose Low Distortion 6.0mm M12 Lens.
• M12 to CS adapter. With M12 lens and rpi Camera Module, this adapter is also needed in between.

• As per Show-me webcam github-page.

Install vnc server on the pi: $ sudo apt-get install realvnc-vnc-server

$ sudo raspi-config

Select: Interfacing Options > VNC and select Yes.

Then launch vnc viewer and connect to pi.

Then on client computer install vnc viewer: https://www.realvnc.com/en/connect/download/viewer/