Webcam Lens Mount / Counterbalance

During COVID, I mounted a webcam (Logitech HD Pro C920x) to my television, for family video teleconferences,  Even post-COVID, it's still useful for parent/teacher conferences, which our children's school still conducts via VTC.

The problem was that the webcam was further from the people on the couch than assumed when the camera was designed.  While it still worked (we were still in focus), we looked excessively small / distant.

To correct this, I created this Thing to fit over the webcam and add a threaded adapter for a standard lens.  I found that a 50-mm lens worked best for the arrangement of my couch and my television, but I tried it with several other focal lengths first, and all those lenses worked fine with the thread.

Once I found the right lens, I found that the lens caused the camera to pitch all the way forward due to its off-center weight.  So, I added a tail to counterbalance the lens and move the center of gravity of the system back to the physical fulcrum of the camera.

This mount was specifically designed for the Logitech HD Pro C920x, but the part that mounts to the lens is a simple "U" shape, so should be easily adjusted for a webcam of different thickness.  The counterbalance may also need to be shorted or extended for different lenses of different weights.  I have included the .STEP file to make this easier.

Even with today's auto-framing software, the extra lens is still useful because the auto-framing sometimes does not include everyone when there are multiple people on camera, and not all cameras / teleconferencing software have auto-framing.