Dear friends welcome to another video!
This is Nick from educ8s.tv and today I am
very excited because we are going to see how
to use the Raspberry Pi camera module!
Let’s start!
When I first received my Raspberry Pi, about
a month ago, the first thing I wanted to have
was this camera module. I have a passion for
photography and from the moment I saw this
module I came up with many project ideas.
It is an impressive little device, it has
a resolution of 5Mp for still images and it
can record FULL HD video at 30 FPS. It is
also very small in size and it costs around
27$. Gearbest.com website was kind enough
to send a sample unit in order to test it
and share my thoughts with you. Thanks Gearbest
for supporting our channel!
You can find a link in the description of
the video if you want to buy this module.
Let’s now see how to connect the camera
module to your Raspberry Pi.
I am using a Raspaberry Pi model A+ here,
but the camera module works on any Raspberry
Pi board. Be sure to unplug the Raspberry
from power before connecting the camera module
to it. Next all you have to do is to connect
this ribbon cable to camera connector on the
Raspberry Pi board which is next to the HDMI
output. The shiny side of the cable must face
the HDMI port. You then have to lock it down.
That’s it!
Let’s now go to the computer to see how
to use the module.
After booting up we open a console window
and we type the following two commands in
order to update the system to the latest version
of the available software.
First we run the command: sudo apt-get update
Next we run the command: sudo apt-get upgrade
This may take some time if your system wasn’t
updated recently. After the upgrade of the
system is completed we can run the following
command: sudo raspi-config
From the menu that appears we have to enable
the Camera module. After doing that, we press
the finish button and we are asked to reboot
the system. That’s it. When the system reboots,
we are ready to use the camera module. Let’s
take some still shots now!
I have connected the 5inch touch display I
showed you few days ago, to the Raspberry
Pi board in order to see what happens when
taking a still image or a video. You can use
your monitor instead with a HDMI cable if
you don’t have a small display like this.
In order to take a still show we have to use
the following command:
raspistill –o imagename.jpg --stats
When we execute the command, at the display
we can see a preview window for 5 seconds
and then a still image is captured.
We can use any filename we like after the
–o flag at the command. You can see that
the image has been created in my Desktop because
I was running the command from the Desktop
folder.
In order to capture a video we have to use
the following command.
raspivid –o testvideo.avi –t 10000
That command creates a video with a filename
testvideo.avi and a length of 10 seconds.
In the display after running the command we
can see a preview of the video and we can
then find the created video in the Desktop
folder. But now let’s go outside and take
some real world images and footage.
That’s a still image from the medieval castle
of Mystras, here in Lakonia, Greece. In the
background you can see the modern city of
Sparta. That’s the slightly edited shot
and that’s the original. The still image
needed some color correction, and straightening.
Now let’s see a 10 second video of this
place taken with the camera module. You can
find the raw image and video in the description
of the video.
As you can see the quality of the images and
the video is impressive for such a small module.
I am really very pleased with the results.
One disadvantage I can see, is that the module
does not support focus or autofocus. It has
a fixed focus at 60cm and more. That’s limiting,
but there are many very interesting projects
we can build with this module. I have many
projects to build in mind. You can find them
in this website, www.educ8s.tv/ideas. In this
webpage you can vote on which ideas you would
like to be built first, or post your own project
ideas. I plan to work on the projects with
the most votes first. So consider voting the
projects you like and help me decide which
projects are more useful and interesting to
you, the viewers of the channel!
Thank you in advance!
If this is your first time here, I would love
to have you subscribed. In this channel I
post videos about DIY projects every Saturday.
I love making things and I believe that anyone
can make things, anyone can become a maker.
That’s why I created this channel, in order
to share my knowledge with the community and
learn from the community. I hope you will
join us. Until next Saturday, Watch, Learn,
Build!
