Live Streaming With Canon EOS Cameras - Yes you can do it! (Mac Only)

[mirajadesign]

I am a longtime Canon user. I personally own 3 Canon EOS cameras. So naturally, when I decided to get into the world of live streaming I wanted to use the gear I already own. But as most of you know Canon self-limits some of their cameras that inhibit the ability to live stream natively (ie: no clean HDMI output, auto shutoff, manual focus only, etc..). Of course, you can do this with multiple capture cards which are not only expensive but extremely hard to find at the time of writing this post due to COVID.

I spent a lot of time and energy researching and trying to get my Canon gear to work. Well I am happy to share that I did it! I made it all work!

For live streaming with Canon EOS cameras, I have successfully been using ECAMM Live with my M50, 6DMKII, and 5DMKII all connected with USB cables.

No capture card needed. No EOS Utility needed. Clean HDMI. No auto-shutoff. Auto Focus works. 

ECAMM Live is by far the best solution for using Canon cameras for live streaming. It just works the way you need it to. The only caveat is that it is MAC software only. I do not know how to do it with Windows.

I have my setup paired with an Elgato Stream Deck for scene changes. I even have 2 additional camera angles set up using a couple of iPhones. I have 5 camera angles all controlled with ECAMM via USB. Can't be beaten IMO. It also works as a virtual webcam so you can use your Canon cameras for things Zoom and Skype. 

Sidenote: I did buy a Black Magic ATEM Mini hoping the Canon Cameras could go through it via HDMI. But the cameras kept auto shutting down and the HDMI is not clean, but there are workarounds. I could never get the 5DMKII to show the full screen. Apparently the ATEM thinks the 5DMKII outputs a 4:3 screen. So I guess I will stick with ECAMM because it works beautifully.

I hope this helps some of you looking to live stream with Canon Cameras. Good luck!

- Raja

[kvbarkley]

You are a day late. Canon just released a streaming app

[mirajadesign]

Sweet! Please link it. I would love to check it out. 

[kvbarkley]

Actually, the current version is Windows only, so your advice is still good. 8^)

https://a.pgtb.me/JCHJp2

[mirajadesign]

Thanks. I am still interested to check it out. Kind of just wish Canon would release firmware updates that would loosen up the noose on our cameras. But the live streaming app is a step in the right direction! Hopefully, they will release a mac version soon!

[malmedia]

As a work around, you can use OBS to stream or record the standard EOS Utility liveview mode.

[kristinh]

But you would have to buy a capture card to use OBS, right?

[kristinh]

Thanks, I will check this out. I've been trying to figure out the best way to do Zoom classes with two cameras plus a couple windows on a mac. There seem to be a lot of different possibilities, but now I am trying to figure out how to get the video content from my two cameras to my laptop. I was trying to figure out if EOS Utility can take two live cameras. 

[mirajadesign]

To use OBS you would need to buy 2 capture cards if you have 2 cameras.

To answer your question about EOS utility, I could only get it to recognize 1 camera at a time. There is a Mac app called Camera Live that feels like beta software because it crashes a lot. You could use one instance of Camera Live and one instance of EOS Utility Live View screen captured with OBS. It can work. But I found it unreliable. I had to restart often when it crashed. I didn’t have any of these issues when I switched to ECAMM.

[malmedia]

OBS can do screen or window capture. So with the standard Canon Utility on live view via USB, OBS can screen capture that for streaming.