I disagree somewhat. Coming from a photography background, we should distinguish quantity and quality.
Quantity of light you can make up with higher gain (ISO) and higher available dynamic range also helps, as you mentioned.
Quality of light is determined entirely outside the camera, and better gear does not help much if at all. For photography, the quality matters countless times more than quantity, usually. I would argue the same is true for video/webcam.
This is what people don't get, and so hobbyists end up with $5k in gear, taking terrible photos. It's similar to when videographers don't put effort into their sound.
This makes it a question of how and what to light, not how much. The latter would be a matter of adjusting gain in-camera, in Post-Processing, or simply turning existing lighting up. But the former part is the important, and difficult, one.
I agree that we should distinguish quantity and quality.
If we don't have enough light in a scene, we need to raise ISO for a given camera and that can easily make scene look bad. For other camera with bigger and less noisier sensor, brighter lens there can be enough light and it can look very good. I can imagine that there are cases, where increasing amount of light will only improve picture for a cheap camera.
If the light is plentiful and bad, cheap camera can produce abysmal results with parts of the image completely washed white in one part, and very dark in other parts. Good sensor with high dynamic range will produce much better results. Of course, improving the light will improve both results.
I'd agree.
I recently picked up a Logitech Brio (employer was paying) and quite happy with it. Main advantage to me is that it can produce a decent picture without me having to faff around with lighting.
Of course if I did sort out lighting, it would be better - but (to me) I'd prefer to just swap out the camera than assemble more clutter around me.
Quantity of light you can make up with higher gain (ISO) and higher available dynamic range also helps, as you mentioned.
Quality of light is determined entirely outside the camera, and better gear does not help much if at all. For photography, the quality matters countless times more than quantity, usually. I would argue the same is true for video/webcam.
This is what people don't get, and so hobbyists end up with $5k in gear, taking terrible photos. It's similar to when videographers don't put effort into their sound.
This makes it a question of how and what to light, not how much. The latter would be a matter of adjusting gain in-camera, in Post-Processing, or simply turning existing lighting up. But the former part is the important, and difficult, one.