- 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 out there?
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The high-quality cameras,
the Pi foundation's third generation camera module.
It's compatible with every Raspi,
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 two 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 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 $50.
Although by the time you factor in
everything else you're gonna need,
a Raspi, SD card and lens,
it's more like 100 to $200.
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.
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,
and 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 you're 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 try distinction,
between a sensor module, which contains no ISP
or Image Signal Processor onboard,
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 result.
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 Raspi camera on the pixel 4,
since they were vastly different fields of view.
Our Raspi 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 Raspi 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 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 what 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 gonna want to stick with that.
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We're gonna have that linked below.
If you guys enjoyed this video,
you might also enjoy our cheap home security camera video
that we did a little while ago
when I was super mad about subscription fees
on the, you know, affordable consumer cameras.
It was also Raspberry Pi-based.
We'll have a look.