Filming an Entire Video on the Yolo Cam S3: Real-World Webcam Performance Review

Most webcam reviews highlight features using high-end DSLR footage—only cutting to the actual webcam near the end, often leading to disappointment. This review flips that script. The entire video was filmed exclusively with the Yolo Cam S3, offering a transparent look at what the camera truly delivers.

See how three Yolo Cam S3 webcams can recreate a multicam desk setup normally handled by DSLRs. This allowed for straight-on shots, top-down views, and side angles—all with switching done through keyboard shortcuts in OBS.

Key Takeaways:

• Real 4K flexibility
  
• Large 1/1.3-inch sensor
• Low-light capability
• Thermals
• Flexible mounting

Why It Stands out:

The Yolo Cam S3 is showcased in a real-world production workflow, demonstrating that consumer webcams are evolving to handle tasks traditionally reserved for mirrorless or DSLR cameras. For creators, teachers, and live streamers, this provides an affordable, practical multicam option that didn’t exist a few years ago. Check out the demo:

Learn more about YoloLiv here

Read the full transcript below:

Most video reviews I've seen where people are talking about a webcam, they will talk about the webcam kind of like I'm talking now, they'll go over all of the nice cool things about it and then at the end they'll finally switch over to the webcam footage and I I always kind of feel like, oh well that's not really as great as they were kind of talking it up. And I'm always kind of disappointed that the quality is not as nice as, you know, the fancy camera that they're using right now, the fancy DSLR or mirrorless camera that they're actually using to film with. Well, here's the thing about this video is I'm actually filming with this camera right now. In fact, let me pop up a graphic that just says what camera I'm filming with for this video. It's going to stay there the rest of this video because this entire video is only going to be shot with this webcam. And when I say this webcam, I I've got one here. Got one here. And let me just pop out a bit cuz I've got one here as well. This is the Yolo Cam S3. And I think about two or maybe 3 months ago, Yolo Cam reached out to me. They asked me if I wanted to try out this webcam. I did. I was really, really impressed with it. I told them as much and I told them, I want to try something. My current setup, I've got two DSLR cameras set up on my desk. I've got one right in front of me, one that shows my desk. I want to see if I can recreate that setup with the Yellow Cam webcam. So, they sent me two more. I've got three in total. That's how I'm able to show you this webcam while I'm filming with the same webcam, but different. That That's That's the webcam I'm filming with. That's the camera I used to film with. I don't know if I'm ever going to use that again. So, I'm going to use this camera. Just mount it here on the mount it comes with. Put it on a tripod because I want to show you the website. But of course, I'm going to film this whole video with only the webcam. So, rather than recording my screen, I'm going to record my screen with this. The main reason I want to show the website is just to go over the claims that they have with this webcam. So, 4K. Yes, it is 4K. Now, I'm filming this in 1080p, but because it's 4K, it allows me to do things like zoom in, punch in a bit, or punch in a lot bit. Now, I'm not losing any quality because this is 4K. I can punch in this far using the full 4K resolution or I can go total widescreen like this 1080p. And yes, I am using keyboard shortcut keys to do all the jumping back and forth. That's another reason I really like this webcam. So, jumping back to this other camera, one over 1.3 in sensor. They claim this is the largest CMOS ever in a webcam. I think there are a couple other webcams that are about the same size, but yeah, this is pretty big for a webcam. Very impressive. Fast autofocus. I'll talk about this more in a bit when we go over the software. AI enhanced imaging. I don't know what that means. Apparently, everything is AI now. It has good imaging. I don't know if it's AI software for camera settings. I will go over the software in just a bit. Let me just say what you can do with this webcam and the software is nice. That being said, the software I think is probably one of the biggest areas for improvement for this webcam. Picasso Resolve, I think they just mean you can do color grading, superb low light performance. Let's check it out. Let me turn off my lights. This camera right here, I have manual ISO. And on this camera here, it's automatic. So, let's check out the difference. Let me go ahead and turn off all the lights. I just turned off the overhead light. Got a key light here. Turn that off. And another light here. Still got a couple colored lights behind me. Let me turn those off. So, this is the low light performance. Let me switch over to the other camera. And yeah, this is obviously pretty dark because it is manual ISO, automatic ISO, so you can tell the difference. The only light that is shining on my face is coming from my monitors. So, yeah, I would agree it does have good low light performance. No overheating guaranteed. I don't know how they're guaranteeing that. Now, I've got my hand on the camera right now. It is definitely warm. These cameras do get warm. They do not get hot. I've used several webcams similar to this that actually get really quite hot. These stay pretty warm. I leave them on 24/7. Never an issue. And lastly, plug-andplay flexible mounting. This webcam comes with a USBA to USBC cable. It has an adapter if you need USBC to USBC. And the way this mounts is it has a metal bracket that you can move it and then you can move it back and forth because it's just attached via a magnet. So you can just plop it on there like that. If you want to do portrait mode, you can plop it on or portrait mode. I'd say that is pretty flexible. So here you can see me recording in OBS. Here's the software. I'm not going to go over everything, but just point out a few things that I think are really nice. It does have a few different kind of focus mode. Right now we're in continual focus. You can do single autofocus and also focus on the face. So, I actually have all my webcams set up for a different type of focus. You can also zoom the camera as you've been seeing me do. And what I really like is for exposure and for white balance. You can either have it be automatic or you can manually set things. So, I can manually set the ISO here. So, you can see as I adjust the ISO how that impacts things. The reason I love this webcam so much is it is extremely flexible. So, I've got three cameras here. If you look at this camera, you can see I'm using keyboard shortcuts to switch between all of the cameras. So, I've got camera one here. Hello. Camera two here, my top down camera. And then camera 3 here, my side camera. If I want to punch out, I can just go here. Or I can go into all sorts of different levels. And I can even keep going with all sorts of zoom levels. Wow, my keyboard is quite dusty. If you're interested on how I'm doing all of this with keyboard shortcut keys, write a comment below. I could do another video on that. That's a pretty fun setup. I'm using OBS and a few plugins to get that to work. But the reason I like that so much, I do product reviews. So, let's say I want to move from this scene to a top- down scene where I want to show off this Rubik's cube. I can switch there really quick. Or maybe I want to show this at a different angle. I can switch over really quick with my keyboard. Or maybe I'm reviewing headphones and I want to give a couple different angles doing that. I can just switch over like this. Just press the keyboard and I can show you what it looks like on the side view like that. If you are a live streamer, you get multiple of these webcams and you can set up different angles like I have. Or if you're a teacher and you want to show a document on the desk, you can do that very easily. If you have a video channel where you do crafts or art, you can get really nice high quality with this webcam. You can see all the details of this gorgeous flower that I am drawing. If you need to zoom in, you can punch in. You can get really high detail with this webcam. If you have a music channel, then you can set up multiple webcams like this where you get a close-up of your instrument. Another shot of your whole setup. So many different options with this webcam. I'm just totally blown away by the quality, especially the versatility of this webcam. I plan on doing follow-up videos after I've used this for a while. If you have any questions, please let me know. I've honestly never been so excited for a webcam as I am for this Yolo Cam S3. Just incredible camera. I'll post any important information down below. Check it out.