webcam questions

I am writing a program that uses a webcam and i need to code some auto adjustment features such as brightness, contrast and gamma. I am currently using EzVidCap as an activeX control which does give me these options but only within a dialog box. My attempts to hook the slider controls have failed.

1. How can i grab a handle of the slider controls and adjust them using an emulated mouse click and drag?

2. Perhaps a better webcam activex will give me direct access to the options i want to change? does you know of any?

3. Is there any API available that i can use to tell the webcam directly that i want to change these levels?