if you're anything like me you saw the new high quality camera from the pi
foundation and thought well the pi foundation comes out with some versatile
and affordable hardware like the raspberry pi surely with a name like
that it must be two things a camera and
high quality but what do words mean
this is clearly not a camera until you build
it and by quality do they mean
it never breaks down or do they mean it takes good pictures
can this really be better than the other options
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the high quality camera is the pi foundation's third generation camera
module it's compatible with every raz pi except the early pi zeros and like the
v1 and v2 it connects to your raspberry pi with a ribbon cable via its mipi csi
2 serial interface now as you'd expect from a pi product the module has
surprisingly competent specs at least on paper including sony's imx 477 sensor
which is similar to what you'd find in a gopro or a dji mavic a tripod mount and
a built-in metal lens mount that feels well high quality as you'd also expect
it's reasonably priced at just fifty dollars although by the time you factor
in everything else you're going to need a raspi sd card and lens it's more like
a hundred to two hundred dollars it's not strictly necessary by the way but
for bonus marks we also 3d printed a housing for ours that both protects it
from incidental static discharge and from bumps and allows us to use it
like a point-and-shoot camera so our config came in at about 185 dollars
now you obviously won't get the water resistance or image stabilization that
you'd find on a gopro but for the price it actually still looks pretty good
this sensor captures 12.33 megapixel
stills in jpeg png and even raw and we
can even shoot video at up to 1080p 50fps h.264 it supports changing the iso
shutter speed white balance you know all the usual camera controls and thanks to
its c-mount lens flange pretty much any lens from very cheap to
very expensive can be made to fit with the right adapter you can even do
in-camera image processing like balancing colors or adding filters like
an oil paint or watercolor effect to your image if you're feeling adventurous
you can add some ai and get notified when your neighbor takes your parking
spot with basic image recognition you can make your own smart door with alexa
integration or you can have a highly customizable security camera with
features that match or even exceed some of the high-end systems out there
maybe the coolest part is that it also happens to be a whole computer with a
built-in browser for you to check out lttstore.com
but there is a gotcha to explain let's
talk semantics the raspberry pi foundation calls this a
camera module in their documentation but some other mipi camera makers draw a
distinction between a sensor module
which contains no isp or image signal
processor on board meaning that the attached computer has to do all the work
of denoising and debayering the raw sensor data and a
camera module which does contain an isp
and outputs a pre-processed image to the host computer which in many cases would
also be a raspi or similar
now a camera module costs more but that
extra hardware can perform more advanced processing compared to the raspberry
pi's built-in isp or it can free up processing resources
that can instead be dedicated to things like scene detection and facial
recognition it can also act as a kind of translation
layer simplifying upgrades by allowing the host system which remember might not
necessarily be a raspberry pi to reuse
existing drivers and software rather than requiring new ones to be written
every time you want to plug in a new sensor so
the gotcha by some definitions this is a
sensor module which hasn't gotten much software support yet meaning that there
are only a few graphical user interfaces that work with it at all and even those
have their limits pi camera app for example gives you an easy
ish to use interface and support for both photo and video but it hasn't been
updated in nearly five years other than a bug fix back in january and might
never be updated to fully support the new modules full resolution and features
that means to unlock its full potential you'll need to have the know-how and
patience to adjust parameters in command line now it isn't all that difficult and
the provided guide has all the commands listed for easy reference with a short
summary of each function but it's very clear that if your goal is to
quickly capture the moment this ain't it chief
which isn't to say that we didn't try armed with our 3d printed high quality
camera and a 3d printed tripod brandon
went on a photography expedition and he's back to tell you about his findings
let me start by saying this camera is such a cool idea it's small it's cheap
and like all pi products your imagination is the limit to its use
now i took the camera out for about an hour and while it was a fun new
experience i am overall disappointed with the results in my testing i took
the raspi camera out into the world with a pixel 4 for comparison i did my best
to match the composition of the razpi camera on the pixel 4 since they were
vastly different fields of view our razpi camera setup was a very rough
experience to use and we had to use command line for all the actual camera
functions so i definitely would have preferred to have a dedicated shutter
button usability aside how does it compare to something like the pixel 4
well that is where things get worse for the raspi camera let's start with the
positives when it comes to the stills the raspi camera does an above average
job with overall sharpness and detail thanks to the sony imx 477 sensor
unfortunately compared to the pixel 4 stills which i even zoomed in on to
better match the field of views between the cameras the razpi has some rough
processing issues in all the photos i took there is a clear magenta cast in
the photos it does a good job of isolating subjects
with a shallow depth of field but especially since these c-mount lenses
aren't anything special in terms of optics the pixel 4's portrait mode
produces just as if not a more pleasing bokeh video wise unfortunately the story
is similar the video is soft lacks overall dynamic range the detail can be
improved a reasonable amount with higher quality lenses but the sensor with this
current processing feels like a phone video from about four years ago it
really goes to show that all the years of r d google and apple have put into
image processing make all the difference in a great result when you're working
with limited hardware i am sure with the right engineers working on the
processing this sensor module could be used for content creation but for now it
is best to use it for the many other applications you would use a camera for
in general well that's a bummer but
realistically i wasn't expecting a 50
module to replace a purpose-built camera anyway so let's talk about what it's
actually good for in practical terms if i wanted a
solution for monitoring my farm of 3d printers or my
lab experiment the usability deficiencies here are less important and
it does live up to its name pretty well offering high quality especially for the
cost the raspberry pi foundation has also committed to producing these things
until at least 2026 so unlike some other
sensor modules i can count on future availability if i need more
so the reason it exists falls in line perfectly with the raspberry pi
foundation's overall goal of putting the power of computing and digital making
into the hands of people all over the world it might not be the best camera in
an apples to apples comparison with a phone for example but it is a great
camera for experiments education and
just cool projects that can benefit from high quality
but don't need the best quality
in conclusion then it's not dumb to build your own camera
but if you have a somewhat recent phone you're probably going to want to stick
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enjoyed this video you might also enjoy our uh cheap home security camera video
that we did a little while ago when i was super mad about uh subscription
subscription fees on the you know affordable consumer cameras it was also
raspberry pi based you'll have a look