Raspberry Pi Releases an Interchangeable-lens Camera Module

[Anaconda_]

I'd love it if someone to built this into an 8mm camera body and wire the trigger up to start/stop recording. The VF doesn't even need to work - or better yet, make it some kind of rangefinder. 

Also, here's the first still image from the camera (As far as I know)

[jzagaja]

What I would like to see is XY film scanner using  video mode to improve resolution and dynamic range. It's only about making proper code - mechanics and optic is easy.

[Elias]

If you ever decide to launch a hobbist camera project, I'd be willing to contribute some of my free time to designing the user interface module.

I've been an advocate of real simple UIs (User Interfaces), however with a balance of the things you need most often right at your fingertips at all times. Today I mostly don't like any of the user interfaces on any of the usual suspects in the camera business (Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, etc), and I think this could be much improved if these manufacturers gave us tools to create our own user interfaces and be able to share them with anyone else; heck, it could be something as simple as designing the UI with HTML, CSS and/or JSON and then providing javascript hooks into the actual functions, something similar to this:

camera.setISO(800);

camera.setSpeed(50);

camera.setApperture(lens.getMaximumApperture());

timeToShoot = 300;

camera.shootVideo(timeToShoot);

etc

[BTM_Pix]

I think where this board might of interest is maybe not with the Pi itself but with more powerful SBCs such as the Jetson Nano which can also accept the same camera boards as the Pi.

The RockpiN10 is another one that is compatible and has the advantage of having eMMC to boot off (waiting for the Pi to boot off its MicroSD will get very old very quickly in a camera application) but it also seems to have a decent Android distro for it which could be a boon in terms of the decent video apps already out there.

Essentially, it would then become what people have been after which is a smartphone (minus the phone  ) with an interchangeable lens.

A big advantage to doing something like this would actually be the "on camera" rather than "in camera" processing as you could easily have other apps such as transcoding available on it as well so, for example, all your footage could be automatically converted to ProRes etc while you are on your way back from a shoot.

Standalone live field streaming from it with a 4G/5G dongle would also be easy to incorporate.

So it would be interesting to tinker with this stuff but your expectations would certainly have to be managed though as it won't bear much fruit performance wise to the level that people on here would be after.

 

[ReinisK]

This is awesome! A raw action camera is what I'd like to make.

[kye]

On 5/3/2020 at 5:28 PM, BTM_Pix said:

I think where this board might of interest is maybe not with the Pi itself but with more powerful SBCs such as the Jetson Nano which can also accept the same camera boards as the Pi.

The RockpiN10 is another one that is compatible and has the advantage of having eMMC to boot off (waiting for the Pi to boot off its MicroSD will get very old very quickly in a camera application) but it also seems to have a decent Android distro for it which could be a boon in terms of the decent video apps already out there.

Essentially, it would then become what people have been after which is a smartphone (minus the phone  ) with an interchangeable lens.

A big advantage to doing something like this would actually be the "on camera" rather than "in camera" processing as you could easily have other apps such as transcoding available on it as well so, for example, all your footage could be automatically converted to ProRes etc while you are on your way back from a shoot.

Standalone live field streaming from it with a 4G/5G dongle would also be easy to incorporate.

So it would be interesting to tinker with this stuff but your expectations would certainly have to be managed though as it won't bear much fruit performance wise to the level that people on here would be after.

 

Congratulations!!

We are very impressed with your application and are delighted to announce you will henceforth be leading the development of this very exciting product!

Please let us know when you anticipate a first prototype for us to trial.  I have cleared my schedule for next week in anticipation.

[BTM_Pix]

27 minutes ago, kye said:

Congratulations!!

We are very impressed with your application and are delighted to announce you will henceforth be leading the development of this very exciting product!

Please let us know when you anticipate a first prototype for us to trial.  I have cleared my schedule for next week in anticipation.

Well its a nice day here so I've set myself up on the balcony to do this al fresco and have gathered together the components that I need for my particular style of product development.

[no_connection]

Agreed, if anyone can make a good working solution it's you.

I have a Pi 3 with normal camera module and happy to test something out.
I'm mostly interested in a HDMI out to external recorder and as studio camera, my experiments with raspivid was promising but could not figure out how to tame some of the manual settings.

I take it the hammer is in case it does not work out?

[BTM_Pix]

1 minute ago, no_connection said:

I take it the hammer is in case it does not work out?

In my world, I refer to the hammer as a fine adjustment tool.

[BTM_Pix]

7 minutes ago, no_connection said:

I'm mostly interested in a HDMI out to external recorder and as studio camera, my experiments with raspivid was promising but could not figure out how to tame some of the manual settings.

I think there might some mileage as a low cost studio camera that is controllable over a network.

I'm pretty deep into developing a new product for the ATEM and the Pi has some potential as a cheap PT (not so much Z though) camera.

[no_connection]

We do have ATEM m/e 1 with 3 Panasonic AW-HE60s and controller, Biggest bummer is they can only do 720p at 50Hz unlike the HDMI variant.

I would be fine with just a non PT angle since the latency seems to be pretty good due to HW acceleration from camera to HDMI port. But I have 6 unused geckodrive and lots of steppers so...
With the new camera module that can be a real bang for the buck.

Also streamdeck with companion, so if it can take html get requests or osc that can be used to control it too.

[BTM_Pix]

I haven't got time to look at this until next week but I'll have a little play with it next week, albeit with the V2 camera rather than the new HQ one.

[no_connection]

Think I have the V2 non IR camera.
Do you think it will be possible to set HDMI output resolution and frame rate from web interface?
Frame rate was one of the thing raspivid seemed to ignore for me.

[BTM_Pix]

48 minutes ago, no_connection said:

Think I have the V2 non IR camera.
Do you think it will be possible to set HDMI output resolution and frame rate from web interface?
Frame rate was one of the thing raspivid seemed to ignore for me.

You might want to try picamera which will give you a pure Python interface to the camera.

You can then develop your own apps and incorporate keyboard or network access to the functionality.

https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/index.html

 

[Anaconda_]

I'm in the process of filling a shopping basket to get this delivered in the next few days... I'm totally new to Pi life, but from what I've read, getting the camera setup seems fairly easy. I already have a couple c-mount lenses and an SD card, so to start out I'm just buying the pi, the camera and a case (it's like €6 so I might as well get it now with the free shipping)

I am having a spot of trouble finding how to wire up a hardware button. Ideally it'll be like a trigger, hold it down to record, let it go to stop. Can someone point me in the right direction?

 

[no_connection]

Problem is I'm not that developer savvy, I used to know haw to program in Delphi back when 3DBuzz had that vtm series. But that was a long time ago.

Also remember to grab or make a heatsink for the pi. It 100% needs it no matter what you do with it, else it will thermal throttle or burn you.

[BTM_Pix]

There are tons of different options but something like this which combines the case, a screen and some buttons is probably the most comprehensive way to do it

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/WINGONEER-Aluminum-Enclosure-Raspberry-Screen/dp/B06XGG28CW

[BTM_Pix]

In a similar vein and less than half the price is this but you'd need to modify you case 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Waveshare-1-44inch-LCD-HAT-Communicating/dp/B077YK8161

[BTM_Pix]

If you just want to directly wire one switch then this tutorial will take you through it .

 

If you haven't got any components or access to a component shop then these starter kits are a good inexpensive way to give you enough things to start experimenting with.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DEYUE-Electronic-Electronics-Components-Raspberry/dp/B07HF62TC3

 

[Matins]

25Mbits/s max, H.264 encoding, 30fps max at 1080p, using the raspivid application (as of the 30th of April): https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/raspbian/applications/camera.md