camera

Many years ago, I decided to migrate my photo library from Apple's now-defunct Aperture to Photos, so I could take advantage of Apple's iCloud Photo Library (don't worry, I still have three full complete local backups, plus a separate cloud backup besides Apple's iCloud originals).

One pain point is RAW support. As camera manufacturers add new models, their proprietary RAW codecs are updated, and software vendors like Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft have to update photo editing tools to work with the new camera models.

I don't envy them this task, but as Photos was Apple's official successor to Aperture (a pale shadow to be sure, but it has its merits as a semi-decent library organizer), they've generally done well supporting new camera models. The compatibility list for macOS Sonoma, iPadOS 17, and iOS 17 is a testament to that effort.

Frigate's 0.13.0 release included a feature near and dear to my heart: easy exporting of timelapses, straight from the Frigate UI.

I'm a little bit nutty about timelapses, and have made them with dashcams, GoPros, full DSLRs, webcams, and even Raspberry Pi.

But one thing I haven't done (until now) is make easy timelapses from IP cameras like the Annke 4K PoE cameras I use for security around my house.

Eventually I'm planning on automating things further, but for now, here's my process for building up a timelapse that's relatively small in file size, preserving only frames where there's motion from frame to frame.

For something like clouds/sky, or natural environments, it's better to do a straight timelapse export and maybe recompress it if you want, but for indoor or outdoor security footage, it's nice to condense it down.

Today Raspberry Pi launched their new Global Shutter Camera.

Outwardly it is almost identical to the 12 Megapixel High Quality Camera, and like that camera it accepts C and CS mount lenses, or most anything else with the appropriate adapter.

But flipping it over reveals a black plastic cover over the back of the board that is not present on the HQ or M12 HQ Camera:

Raspberry Pi just announced their new Camera Module 3, which comes in four variations (standard and wide angle, normal and NoIR for infrared use), and costs $25 for the standard versions, and $35 for wide angle.

That's a step up from the older Camera Module 2, which cost $25 and only came in a 'standard' focal length.

I posted a video reviewing the Camera Module 3 on YouTube, and you can watch it here:

ArduCam recently completed a successful crowdfunding campaign for a 16 megapixel Raspberry Pi camera with built-in autofocus.

The camera is on a board with the same footprint as the Pi Camera V2, but it has a Sony IMX519 image sensor with twice the resolution (16 Mpix vs 8 Mpix) and a larger image sensor (1/2.53" vs 1/4"), a slightly nicer lens, and the headline feature: a built-in autofocus motor.

Autofocus performance

Getting right into the meat of it: autofocus works, with some caveats.

First, the good. Autofocus is quick to acquire focus in many situations, especially in well-lit environments with one main subject. Using ArduCam's fork of libcamera-still or libcamera-vid, you only need to pass in --autofocus and the camera will snap into focus immediately.

I shoot the 'A-roll' for my YouTube videos with a Sony a6000 and a small Glide Gear TMP 75 smartphone teleprompter:

Until recently, I had these mounted on a tripod just off the back corner of my desk:

Some people mount semi-permanent camera rigs on a pole on their desks (example), but my adjustable-height desk (by UPLIFT) is not rock solid, so sometimes when I'm typing or accidentally bump the desk, anything mounted to the desktop wobbles.

For lights, monitors, etc., a little wobble isn't a problem. But even with image stabilization in my camera, the wobble becomes noticeable if I have the camera physically attached to my desk.

Today I posted the first episode of a new series on the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera.

I plan on releasing a number of videos in the series covering how to use the HQ camera in various settings, like for astrophotography, nature photography and video, as a webcam or for streaming, for time-lapse photography, and for general photography.

I'll be updating this post with all the videos as I publish them:

I've been shooting Nikon DSLRs since the D40 came out, and currently shoot with D700 and D750 FX bodies which have served me well for years.

In the past, I've rented a Z6—Nikon's first foray into pro-level mirrorless cameras—for a couple events, and I also own a Sony a6000 and have rented a Sony A7iii for a couple events. I have been very interested in the relentless march of technology in photography. From a couple old nice film bodies I started with, to the earliest digital cameras which had terrible IQ but the ability to instantly review and share photos, to DSLRs which quickly surpassed the quality of 35mm film photography, it has been an eventful 25 years.

The Nikon D700 holds a special place in my heart. I started getting serious about photography right around the time digital SLR cameras (DSLRs) were overtaking film cameras in terms of quality and sales quantity. My first non-snapshot camera was a manual-focus Minolta X-700, and I'm sad I sold it years ago. The D700 was the first 'semi-pro' level DSLR I used; though I never owned one until recently.

I rented and borrowed the Nikon D3, D3s, and D700 a number of times when they were the state of the art, and I still love the way the D700 renders images. The fact that it shoots at 12 megapixels means it's more forgiving with handheld photography at slower shutter speeds (since motion blur gets much worse as resolution increases). It doesn't do video at all... but as a photographer's camera, besides maybe the Nikon Df, there isn't a DSLR that I've enjoyed using as much for as long.

The original Raspberry Pi Camera model v1.3 came from the factory set to ∞ (infinity) focus, so when you used it out of the box for something like a landscape timelapse rig, or for security or monitoring purposes (where the Pi is at least 5 meters away from the subjects it's recording), everything would look crisp and sharp.

For many fixed-focus cameras and lower-end camera sensors, it makes sense to set them to infinity focus; closer objects are still recognizable, but slightly blurry. Most of these cameras don't need to focus on a person a meter away for a portrait, and they're also rarely used for FaceTime-like video chat.