I have a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520 (1143) which I bought without an operating system. Back then I installed Windows Vista and then Ubuntu...I don't remember exactly in which OS I did it, but I changed my Camera in Skype to black and white, because I wanted it that way. Then I updated to Win8 and then updated to Ubuntu 12.04. I still use both now. To my surprise, the WebCam is still black and white and I can't change that back.
On Win8:
In the 'Video Capture Filter Properties' in Settings/Video, the 'Color Enable' square is gray and cannot be checked...In the control panel I find no option to change something in the driver (which i downloaded from the Lenovo official page) to make it work with colors
On Ubuntu:
In the Skype/Options/Video dialogue I see no way to manipulate the color of the image. In the 'System Settings' I see no camera Icon...In 'System Settings'/Color I see the 'Chicony Electronics-Webcam' listed with the tag Uncalibrated. When I try to calibrate it, I realize I have no 'calibration target'...I've now installed the 'v4l2' package and I'm stuck again.
Update Jan 2018:
On every one of my operating systems since 2013 I have had a black-and-white camera. So I have decided to stop looking for a solution. I have dismantled my laptop and taken out the wbcam-module.