Build your own Sony Camera with a raspberry Pi - 12.3 MP module now available

[williamcll]

 

For the price of 50USD you can now build your own Sony digital camera, the module is also interchangeable with C ans CS mounts.

Quote

Raspberry Pi Ltd. has launched a $50 “High Quality Camera” for the Raspberry Pi. The 12.3-megapixel, HD camera ships with optional 6mm CS-mount ($25) and 16mm C-mount ($50) lenses. Raspberry Pi Ltd. has sold 1.7 million units of its circa 2016, 8-megapixel v2 Raspberry Pi Camera after discontinuing its original 5-megapixel camera. Raspberry Pi has now launched a $50 High Quality Camera that jumps to 12.3-megapixels and supports any C or CS mount lens attachment.

 

The Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera is equipped with a 12.3-megapixel, 7.9mm (Type 1/2.3) Sony IMX477 sensor. The lens has a 1.55μm × 1.55μm pixel size — twice that of the 8MP camera’s Sony IMX219 sensor — and supports 1920 x 1080-pixel resolution. Output is available in RAW12/10/8 and COMP8 formats.
 

The Sony IMX477 sensor provides back illumination for improved sensitivity and offers improved signal-to-noise ratio and low-light performance compared to fixed-focus lenses. Since the camera already integrates an IR cut filter, there are no plans to create a separate low-light PiNoIR model, which is available for the 8MP model.
 

 

 

Source: https://linuxgizmos.com/raspberry-pi-gains-12mp-camera-with-optional-c-and-cs-lenses/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/new-product-raspberry-pi-high-quality-camera-on-sale-now-at-50/

Thoughts: This looks like the most powerful camera among all SBCs, if not all desktops as well. It's definitely better than the crappy sub 10MP most computers come with. I could imagine a few good uses for this module such as the tweet below, I wish other brands would do this as well.

 

 

[vanished]

Nice to see some improvements, and the swappable lenses are cool.  I have to admit I was a bit thrown off by that at first though.  This isn't DSLR-tier (which for $50 should be obvious in hindsight).  The sensor is gonna be similar to what you'd get in a phone or GoPro.

 

For anyone who knows what it means, this has a crop factor of ~5.5 and so those focal lengths work out to ~33 mm and ~88 mm full-frame equivalents.

[williamcll]

9 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Nice to see some improvements, and the swappable lenses are cool.  I have to admit I was a bit thrown off by that at first though.  This isn't DSLR-tier (which for $50 should be obvious in hindsight).  The sensor is gonna be similar to what you'd get in a phone or GoPro.

 

For anyone who knows what it means, this has a crop factor of ~5.5 and so those focal lengths work out to ~33 mm and ~88 mm full-frame equivalents.

 

[vanished]

Just now, williamcll said:

 

lol nice

I can't imagine many people are going to be shelling out $1k+ for a pro-grade lens to bolt to a $50 sensor module, but having the option is pretty cool.  For anyone who already has a lens like that "laying around", this setup should provide some interesting opportunities that simply weren't possible before.

[dalekphalm]

This could be a somewhat cheap way to build your own security cameras, or a live stream camera.

[vanished]

Quality looks great based on this example shot from their website (click to view in separate tab - for some reason, the in-page preview generated looks absolutely terrible)

Spoiler

I was curious what versions this supports, and a bit concerned it might be limited to the new more powerful 4 only, due to the increased resolution, but apparently that's not an issue at all:

Quote

The High Quality Camera is compatible with almost all Raspberry Pi models, from the original Raspberry Pi 1 Model B onward.

 

I definitely second the interest in potential use as a webcam.  Most off the shelf options are poor at best, and a "proper camera" + Elgato CamLink or similar setup will run you nearly $1000.  If this can get that level of quality or at least close for a fraction of the cost, there are going to be a lot of interested people, particularly at the moment.  The one potential issue with this is that, as I said, it is still a small sensor, so it will likely struggle to get enough light for optimum quality indoors.  I'll be curious to see additional content on this over the next few weeks.

[Warin]

6 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

lol nice

I can't imagine many people are going to be shelling out $1k+ for a pro-grade lens to bolt to a $50 sensor module, but having the option is pretty cool.  For anyone who already has a lens like that "laying around", this setup should provide some interesting opportunities that simply weren't possible before.

If you already had a decent 300mm f/4 lens, it might be kind of cool to build something like this.  With a 5.5 crop factor, a 300mm becomes a 1650mm equivalent.  Might be fun for bargain astrophotography, if the image quality is reasonably ok.

[vanished]

14 hours ago, Warin said:

If you already had a decent 300mm f/4 lens, it might be kind of cool to build something like this.  With a 5.5 crop factor, a 300mm becomes a 1650mm equivalent.  Might be fun for bargain astrophotography, if the image quality is reasonably ok.

Perhaps, although the size comes to mind again.  I know an APS-C body on a 12" dobsonian telescope at base ISO (100) can shoot Jupiter at 1/60, maybe 1/90th of a second for proper exposure (this of course varying by time as our positions and thus relative size and brightness chances, but just for rough idea).  You'd get an ok amount of zoom out of the setup you described, but even for planets which are rather bright, I can't imagine that working well with a lens and sensor that's so much smaller (particularly the lens if I'm honest).  As for most other things (galaxies, etc.) not only do you need that magnification (although in some cases not nearly as much) but orders of magnitude more light as well.  Even the setup I described is woefully inadequate.  I think this will do well whenever and wherever you can give it enough light, but as with phones, that is primarily outdoors in broad daylight, and not really anywhere else.

[Nicnac]

This is so cool! Might dig out my raspi again for a project with this

[Belgarathian]

On 5/3/2020 at 5:45 AM, Ryan_Vickers said:

lol nice

I can't imagine many people are going to be shelling out $1k+ for a pro-grade lens to bolt to a $50 sensor module, but having the option is pretty cool.  For anyone who already has a lens like that "laying around", this setup should provide some interesting opportunities that simply weren't possible before.

I am literally one of those people.... EF 70-200mm F2.8/L IS USM II. From the days when I thought I could turn a hobby into a career.

[LAwLz]

On 5/2/2020 at 7:47 PM, dalekphalm said:

This could be a somewhat cheap way to build your own security cameras, or a live stream camera.

 

I was wondering how much that would cost, so I looked it up.

 

 

High quality camera module - 50 dollars

Raspberry Pi 4 - 35 dollars

Lens - 25 dollars

Cables - 20 dollars?

Case, memory card and such - 30 dollars

 

160 dollars for everything necessary for one camera. Not bad but not great either.

You'd probably want maybe 3 cameras or so for a regular house. So 480 dollars for the cameras, and then maybe some server (another Pi maybe?) that saves everything recorded. Probably like 600 dollars in total.

For a little bit more you can get something like a WD ReadyView surveillance system off Amazon. That has 4 cameras, the cameras are weather sealed and so on.

[cj09beira]

hmm, add a 3d printed case to it, 2 stepper motors and one can easily make their own security camera with the ability to pan around, wouldn't be hard to add zoom either....

[porina]

 

I had to dig out the resolution and speed support as above from their guide book.

 

So, 12MP at 10fps. At a more 1080-ish resolution up to 50fps is usable as a video camera I guess, achieved by pixel binning. Up to 120fps if you don't mind going back to near SVGA.

 

In my (limited) experience of C/CS mount lenses, you tend to get what you pay for. There are some really cheap lenses, but there are also high end ones that'll cost as much as any other camera system. Do check the image circle coverage if you decide to get some. The mount itself doesn't define that.

 

I think it could be very usable for some astrophotography. For example, the one I'm linking below was popular in astrophotography for imaging the moon or sun (with appropriate equipment to do so safely). https://www.theimagingsource.com/products/industrial-cameras/usb-2.0-monochrome/dmk41au02/

It was a long time ago, but it costs into the hundreds. I had another similar model for planets, where higher framerates were desired and I went for a colour model. Even then, I think mine only did 60fps at a lower resolution. Do note the apparent size of planets are pretty small, even with big optics and small sensor. I had it on back of a 2000mm telescope, with 2x barlow (for 4000mm) and that's not including any crop factor. While Jupiter and Saturn are relatively large so the rings and bigger cloud bands could be made out, I was just about able to tease out surface detail of Mars with that setup.

 

I suppose the interesting thing about this camera is not just using it as yet another camera. What else can you do with the data and not just saving it as a stream? Computational photography of some sort?

[RedRound2]

On 5/2/2020 at 11:17 PM, dalekphalm said:

This could be a somewhat cheap way to build your own security cameras, or a live stream camera.

you can get much cheaper ESPCams for DIY security. There's good enough feed, and of course you can pair it up with Raspberry Pi for more powerful features like facial recognition, etc

 

 

I dont think this intended for this segment. I'm not entirely sure what this could be used for, but hey why not

[Shreyas1]

On 5/4/2020 at 6:03 AM, LAwLz said:

 

I was wondering how much that would cost, so I looked it up.

 

 

High quality camera module - 50 dollars

Raspberry Pi 4 - 35 dollars

Lens - 25 dollars

Cables - 20 dollars?

Case, memory card and such - 30 dollars

 

160 dollars for everything necessary for one camera. Not bad but not great either.

You'd probably want maybe 3 cameras or so for a regular house. So 480 dollars for the cameras, and then maybe some server (another Pi maybe?) that saves everything recorded. Probably like 600 dollars in total.

For a little bit more you can get something like a WD ReadyView surveillance system off Amazon. That has 4 cameras, the cameras are weather sealed and so on.

i mean, i got a refurbished dslr for around 200 bucks on amazon, so for 40 bucks more its probably not worth it