Olympus OM-D Webcam Beta Is Now Compatible With Macs

Almost all major camera makers have, by now, announced one form of software or another that turns a select number of their cameras into hi-res webcams. The motivation behind this push is hardly any secret as anyone and everyone tries to ride the Zoom wave. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, only a few camera models are supported and most of them start off supporting only Windows. Owners of Olympus' OM-D cameras with Macs might be happy to know that they're no longer being left out of video conferencing party.

Canon kicked off the webcam campaign last April and others followed not long after. It was also the first to add support for Apple's computers. Olympus only launched its Webcam software, which is still in beta, only last month seems to have finally caught up with providing the basic features for both Windows and Mac users.

Olympus's OM-D Webcam beta software now supports any Mac running on at least macOS 10.12 Sierra. Users only need to install the provided software and, curiously, restart their Macs. Once that's done, though, they can connect any compatible Olympus camera and use it like any external USB webcam.

Sadly, the list of compatible cameras hasn't grown by one bit. That is still limited to only the E-M1X, E-M1, E-M1 Mark II, E-M1 Mark III, and E-M5 Mark II. Whether it plans to add more cameras to that list is still unknown at this point.

Olympus does make a footnote about this being beta software and, therefore, doesn't come with any warranty or even customer support. Olympus also notes that it has tested the setup to work with native Mac apps but only lists OBS, Chrome, and Zoom via Chrome. Other video conferencing apps may or may not work, but most will, hopefully.