Modular Pi Cam

Ahh man, 10 hrs later the decision to print with the front up ended up being bad... it looks good but it broke the seal/makes it look bad... oh well.

Still... I am pretty pleased with it, it's bulky and it has a tripod attachment, large screen.

Ugh... I should not have used hot glue, I knew it would be ugly.

But it works

See the v2 module vs the HQ cam

The side profile looks good, it's beefy

I did not have time to work on the code so I'll have to put time into that

It has to detect which camera so that if it is for example the V3 module, it can do electronic aperture change

Yeah I am pretty pleased with the performance of the V3 modules so it'll be nice to switch between them and the wide one with the same camera body.

I'll post the videos when they're done processing.

Swap cameras

Devlog

The front plate takes almost 10 hours to print... so I'm waiting on that.

I soldered all the parts together, tested the buttons all work

Tested LCD

This is my last day off so won't be able to take it out till next week Monday

I will reprint the back plate... this one took 4 hours but if rotated so it has the nicer finish takes over 7.

I figure as something I will look at a lot, should look better

The internals are nasty... took me over 2 hours to solder this

Trying out lenses at the park

I've been printing out the different camera module sliding plates and after I add the screw holes/mounts for the body, will start printing that too.

Major dimensions are 5.25" x 1.5"

It is quite roomy inside

Will add the stenciling last since the letters really screw up the skin in SketchUp

Once I get the 16mm 10MP lens (blue ring) in the mailbox will take that out today

That looks more like a camera now, it's alright... it deviated from the original design but I just need to get it done, have some physical thing again

Can see the camera module swap slide lock thing below

So I've got 4 days starting today to make the next camera

This one has the sliding lock mechanism to interchange the camera modules

Still prototyping the sliding lock thing but can see on the right it supports most of the RPi camera boards, software will tell which one is which though the best one is the RPi HQ cam with a good lens eg. the 10MP blue ring one.

The TYPE-A cable is long that's why this sliding mechanism is a bit chunky

The new middle body will include a tripod nut thing to mount it to a tripod, in this case I'm using the one that comes with the RPi HQ cam though I did buy some 1-4/20 in nuts.

Building something close to this camera, with some corners cut eg. no plastic spring clip battery bay

More dev log images

Camera module swap locking mechanism prototyped

Mmm I really like this picture

I did some more field testing with the v3 module... really not a conclusive test... bad subject (everything is dead, no leaves). The HQ cam is looking more and more attractive though. The 35mm shots for example I'm really impressed with for instance:

Look at that Onyo! That's a sees pound onyo

Anyway it dose have chromatic aberration (purple around edges)

Video of today's escapade

Early design of the clip, slide thing to swap camera modules

Oh man... I already have another camera in the works... I ordered this 2.4" diagonal display... oh man... it will be part of this project still though... but the orange camera's interface is not good...

I also will double up the battery packs so the camera lasts longer

So pretty much combine the interfaces between the modular cam and the pi zero hq cam (I like the dedicated 5 buttons and back button) and spring shutter from modular pi cam... will be all back. The orange makes it look like a toy ha.

I will look into a more ergonomic design but the modular idea is key (compute in center section).

Noooo it's like an obsession, I keep making these cameras

This one is different... the display is bigger

Oh man... so I've been trying the wide angle camera and I'm just disappointed honestly... I guess what do I expect you know? You can't compare this to a real camera eg. Sony Alpha Nex-5n (APS-C camera from 14 yrs ago).

I went ahead and ordered the standard camera module so I can try that... to see how it is with regard to the nasty distortion.

I have started to experiment with settings... I have to make a web interface so I can try them faster/in real time as I dial it down for a new GUI.

The ability to set focus electronically (as opposed to mechanical eg. with your hand) is nice.

I will go to the park today just to try out the camera outside... will have photos in like 5 hrs or so.

DISCLAIMER: THIS USES TYPE A CABLES

This is the key to modularity for now... I can't design a PCB board right now (not in my skillset) so this will do... for a detachable camera. Since I now have 2... and this connector actually can detach any camera... since they all use that 15-pin format.

I need a way to set the focus by GUI for sure...since right now it seems that things that are closer are much sharper than far away (using infinite focus eg. 0).

There's ghosting/softness is the part that is disappointing for me... but I have only been using it indoors without doing any settings so it could be (probably is) just a user problem.

Update

I did go... I'm just dumb, I left the focus hardcoded to 1-3m ahhhhhh I'll have to go again... plus side I'll take the HQ Cam with me to do some comparison

I designed a quick front plate for the V3 camera module

I had to use the "oops, burn it with soldering iron tip" technique to modify the camera mount

Yeah... this auto focus will have to get fixed because you can't predict where it will be... so I'll probably just focus it to infinity... I have to see

Also the distortion is nuts on this camera like the edges...

Look at that... holy cow haha, my blinds are not curved, that's the top left of a frame

Oh man... it looks to be related to how close it is...

Here is a portion of my ceiling taken idk 5-10 ft away

Then here is the ceiling when it is 10-20 ft away

This is definitely not a quantitative analysis and I have to take it outside to see if it will work as a landscape camera

I also want to see how it looks in good lighting eg. blue sky, no clouds, green day

I will say at this time I have not modified any code so this is just some stock profile/take photo via picam2

I need to dig into the manual/settings and figure out what I can do with this camera

Some discussion here https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=349292

It looks promising, vibrant colors, more pixels

I need to design and print the new face plate (move the camera over to the right side too away from hand). Then take it outside to really test it.

The random focusing is not great... I need to be able to set that or turn it off via the camera interface (LCD/buttons).

Oh man... I hit submit... it's all gone. Great...

Anyway I failed setting up bluetooth react native app... I think it's because BLE vs. native bluetooth.

Bluetooth is also not easy it turns out.

So I went with door #2... Access Point.

Anyway I did order the camera module v3 wide version, that suits me since I'm more of a landscape person.

The idea would be... if you put the camera on a tripod it can be controlled with a web interface (viewed on your phone or other wifi device).

I just prototyped out the code based on the mjpeg_server.py example

It all works... I just gotta figure out all the values I can change, what makes sense to change.

Also I'm trying to come up with a name for the pi camera software for handhelds.

I'm not really the guy to start a repo to be followed (poor code practices) but it's getting to that point where I went a dynamic/adaptable software per hardware.