Digital Trends

The QuickCam Pro 9000 and QuickCam Pro for Notebooks will benefit from lenses made by Carl Zeiss.

Logitech announced on Thursday that it has partnered with lens manufacturer Carl Zeiss to provide the optical components in its latest webcams. The QuickCam Pro 9000 and QuickCam Pro for Notebooks are intended to raise  the quality of webcam images , which are often muddled, out of focus and too dark.

Carl Zeiss provides lenses for eyeglasses, space telescopes, and perhaps most notably, other cameras, including many of Sony’s higher end Cyber-Shot models. “We are excited to join forces with Logitech and to expand our reach into this interesting market,” said Dr. Winfried Scherle, vice president and general manager of Carl Zeiss’s Camera Lens Division, in a statement. “The new webcams announced today are just a preview of the advancements in image quality that we anticipate from this collaboration.”

Besides the upgraded lenses, both webcams feature an advanced autofocus system that Logitech claims will refocus the image in less than three seconds and keep images sharp even for extreme close-ups, when the subject is as close as 10 cm from the camera.  A 2-megapixel sensor will be capable of capturing high-def (960 x 720 pixels ) video at 30 frames per second.  

Both webcams will go on sale for in July for $99.99.