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 has two official camera modules: the 8 megapixel Pi Camera, and the 12 megapixel HQ Camera.
Third party camera solution provider ArduCam has supplemented the official cameras with a variety of options for all kinds of Pi-based projects. Just last year they introduced the first camera to bring autofocus to the Pi.
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.
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.
In the class of 'out there' projects, I recently added a little AI to my leaf blower:
The short of it: I have a face detection algorithm running which, when a certain individual enters the field of the Pi's vision, triggers a servo that powers on the blower, releasing a powerful air blast.
I've been wanting to play around with face detection on the Pi for some time, but the Pi Zero I use in most of my camera projects is seriously underpowered for this kind of work.
So when Harlab (Hardware Laboratory) told me they'd like to send me a CM4Ext Nano board for testing, I thought it'd be the perfect opportunity to play with machine vision on the Pi.