Testing out the NEW Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3

Raspberry Pi just launched the camera module 3 which is a huge upgrade with a little camera like this you can just plug it into a Raspberry Pi and then you can program your pipe to do things like take pictures and video via custom webcam or even do face or object recognition like I did in my video about blowing Redshirt Jeff last here but this new version has some major upgrades first the image sensor is bigger it's the Sony IMX 708 which is the same sensor Apple used in their find X2 the sensor has new tech like backside illumination and stacked CMOS which makes the image quality a lot better than the older camera modules the sensor is 7.4 millimeters which is close to the size of the HQ camera and almost double the area of the old camera module 2. but the best thing about this camera is the built-in autofocus you can set Focus manually autofocus once or turn on continuous autofocus but in every case it works great the sensor uses phase detect and not the slower contrast detect method that hunts back and forth a lot the camera comes in three different varieties a normal model with either a 75 degree or 120 degree field of view lens or a no IR version that lets you take pictures in the dark it costs 35 bucks and unlike most Raspberry Pi's right now you might actually be able to buy one now this isn't the first autofocus camera for the a pie that honor goes to ardu Kim who launched two different autofocus cameras last year and Raspberry Pi also sells the high quality camera which doesn't have autofocus but lets you screw on better lenses and has a tripod screw that makes mounting a lot easier this new camera module has the same form factor as the earlier camera module and Camera module 2 with the lens and autofocus element is bigger so it won't fit in most existing cases like my neat little Pi zero enclosure or this Pi camera case from Adafruit but new cases for the new camera module will be out soon also any case that doesn't cover the front of the camera module should still work I wanted a quick way to test the image quality and also compare it to my iPhone 13 Pro so I looked around and found a really cool 3D printed camera design called the pycon Kevin macler designed this case that holds the pi a touch screen the camera and a shutter button and a compact 3D printed case and it's really ergonomic so I decided to build my own version I bought all the parts I needed including a 3.5 inch touchscreen a push button for the shutter and some screws to hold everything together I dry fit it all together outside of the case and it's already looking pretty good but to fit my parts into the picon case I had to modify it a little I'm using a large push button for the shutter so I added a hole in the case for it and the picon was built for the HQ camera not the camera module so I modified the front mounting holes too and when I went to print the case I realized I still had some rainbow filament I was using to print a unicorn for my daughter and well that filament doesn't work as well for precise print like this camera case so I swapped Back to Black and printed another case this time it printed perfectly and after removing the supports I went back to my desk to put it together by the way I have instructions and code for everything you see here in my Pi camera GitHub repository see the link below first I slid the camera modules flat cable through the slot on the case and screwed the camera module to the front then I flipped it over and screwed the Raspberry Pi in place I soldered a 2x4 header onto the push button so I could plug it into the gpio pins then I took it back back to my desk and slotted it through its hole it's really hard to tighten up the nut that holds it in place but eventually I got it in I plugged the shutter into the gpio pins then I plug the camera cable into the Pi's camera Port I plugged in the screen which uses the first bunch of gpio pins and then I screwed in the bottom plate the pikon case is great but there are already some improvements I think we could make there's no tripod screw in the base plate the screw holes aren't recessed so it doesn't sit flat and there's nothing really securing the screen in place right now but like I said all the details are on GitHub so maybe we can work together and improve it a little more I love that about the pi Community Kevin made this first design and has a whole video about it on his YouTube channel I saw that and I remixed his work a bit and changed it for my own needs and maybe someone else can take this case and take it to the next level right now I have to power the pi via USBC and that means there's a cable hanging out of the top which is a little Annoying hopefully I can also find a way to use a battery internally for software I'm using this camera script and to get the screen working I had to run a few commands and tweak the Pi's boot config like I said all the Gory details are up on GitHub so go check that out since I didn't have a tripod screw I used Gaff tape to mount the camera next to my iPhone on a two camera tripod adapter for power I taped a power bank to the handle and well this thing won't win any awards for looks but at least now I can compare my iPhone and the camera module 3. I tested it out quickly in my office with a picture of my black Xbox controller and already you can see the camera module struggles a bit indoors at least on auto settings the iPhone's picture has a lot more detail and the exposure is a bit closer to reality of course the iPhone does things like HDR and multi-exposure Magic to get better pictures but the camera module can actually also do HDR I just haven't had time to test that out yet so to get a better idea of how the camera performs I grab the rig and head It Outdoors first up I went to an area overlooking Route 66 I hopped out of my car turned around and snapped the picture of my trusty old Camry everything in the pi picture is a bit more muddy and the camera module underexposed a bit to save the highlights in the sky so overall a win for the iPhone and I turned around and looked at the railroad overpass and besides the different field of view I was actually surprised how the pie camera turned out to my eye the pie got better colors and exposure here the iPhone seems to have over processed the darker parts for autofocus shooting directly into the sun seemed to confuse the sensor the iPhone focused just fine but on the pie it kept losing focus if the sky was in the majority of the frame and something I didn't really notice in other pictures there was a bit of waviness in the pie pictures if if you look at the tower in the iPhone picture it's a nice straight line in the pi image it's actually a little wavy it seems like this might be due to the shutter speed and maybe it's a bug in the beta software I was using but I did want to point that out it only seemed to happen outside and in the sunlight Switching gears to an up close macro shot the camera module does better here it's only rated down to 10 centimeters but I found it can focus a bit closer than that and when it does the out of focus areas are pretty pleasing but jumping back to a wider shot this picture really shows the difference the lens makes the camera modules lens just isn't as sharp as the iPhones and there's a lot more Distortion around the edges like on this house but I mean I expected that you're not going to get Exquisite lens Coatings and multiple correcting lens elements on a 35 pie camera and here's another picture with wavy Distortion in the tower and the Pie's colors also seem a little off here and for this last outdoor photo you can really see the difference the lens makes the pie picture is good but when you zoom in all the way on the tower in the middle of the photo the iPhone has a lot more detail even though both cameras saved a 12 megapixel file wrapping up the photo testing I also got a wide angle camera module right before publishing the video so I did one test shot in the workshop with both cameras the wide angle is a lot wider 120 degrees versus 75 and you can also see I'm wearing shorts in the middle of winter here zooming in on the wide angle though the lens just can't keep up it washes out lots of detail even so I expected some distortion on the sides but in that regard it's not bad at all it can't compete with my iPhone but it's plenty of quality for like a surveillance camera or something you'd put on a robot for object detection I haven't tested the Noir camera yet but I'll leave that for a future video and in general I've only had time to take a few hundred pictures so far the sensor is very good almost on par with the secondary ones on my iPhone but the lenses are a bit lacking they don't do the sensor justice so you waste a bit of that 12 megapixel resolution with the right lenses the high quality camera is pretty much tack sharp but with a similar sized newer sensor the built-in lenses on the camera module 3s just can't resolve a full 12 megapixels of detail but they're decent especially considering the whole thing is 35 bucks if you want to crisper autofocus camera the 64 megapixel Hawkeye from ardu Kim is best but it's also 60 bucks almost twice as much the camera module 3 does seem to have a little better autofocus than the Hawkeye though and I won't spend much time discussing video quality but I did take some videos it's certainly acceptable for webcam use or if you want to do surveillance or something like that but it's not as sure sharp as even a mid-range smartphone my wife's iPhone SE gives a better picture and it can even shoot in 4k without dropping any frames some recordings that I did on the Pi had a little stutter like this video of traffic on Route 66 but again I'm using beta software so that might get better if the drivers are improved or if I can optimize my Pi camera scripts a little better the video quality is certainly better than all but the most expensive webcams and this camera is a great upgrade over the camera module 2 for 10 bucks more if you want autofocus and the highest image quality the RDU chem Hawkeye is best and if you don't need autofocus at all the HQ camera might be perfect but both of those options are more expensive I will say the thing I liked most testing all this out was the freedom it gave me I realized at one point I was sshing into my camera it was actually easier for me to tweak settings and grab pictures off this pie than it is on my expensive GoPros Sony's or Peck even my iPhone having full control over my camera without having to install any apps and also free reign to change the OS or swap out components that's pretty cool on the flip side that also means the UI for it is all up to me and yeah it's not great the touch screen I used is pretty bland and its drivers are terrible for a camera so overall I'd only recommend building your own pycon if you're a sucker for torture just like this video's sponsor no I'm just kidding until next time I'm Jeff gearling

Channel: Jeff Geerling

Views: 211,698

Keywords: raspberry pi, camera, camera module 3, cm3, hq camera, high quality, open source, design, lens, wide angle, imx708, oppo find x2, smartphone, custom, csi, tensorflow, picamera, picamera2, camera module 2, module, arducam, hawk-eye, 12mp, megapixels, autofocus, focus, motor, libcamera, vid, av, still, photography, astrophotography, photographer, pieca, pikon, 3d printing, shutter, gpio, software, app, python, github, print, robotics, examples, sample, tested, review, testing, reviewed

Id: 1EIFfln3Kxs

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 09 2023