New camera…

[Shand359]

I am wondering if there is a plan to support the new Auto-focus 64gb HQ camera. Or will it already work?
It’s meant to be on the same board as the current HQ camera and using the same drivers from ArduCam as the Bullseye ones..

[EricClaeys]

@Shand359 If the camera is supported by raspistill (Buster) or libcamera-still (Bullseye) it should work with Allsky. If you have one, run libcamera-hello and see what happens.
We won't be adding any code to deal with auto-focus though.

[Shand359]

Auto-focus code should not be required as the auto part of it can apparently be switched off...

[Shand359]

Well, looks like the new camera thats meant to be 100% compatible with the RPiHQ camera isnt....

[EricClaeys]

@Shand359 What happens when you run libcamera-hello?

[Shand359]

[EricClaeys]

@Shand359 Run libcamera-hello when on the desktop. The image should appear for 5 seconds in a new window.
If it doesn't or you aren't on the desktop, run libcamera-still -output SOME_FILE.jpg.
Also, please run libcamera-still --list-cameras.

[Shand359]

Ok... I input the drivers for the camera and ran both commands. It doesnt look good to be honest.... faulty cam maybe....

[EricClaeys]

@Shand359 I would guess the camera's ok but something isn't set up correctly. Have you talked to whomever sold you the camera to see if there's a driver for it or other configuration settings needed?

[Shand359]

I have messaged thePiHut asking them about it. They have forwarded me to ArduCam themselves as they deal with their own product support...

[EricClaeys]

@Shand359 Do you know the pixel size of the chip?

[Alex-developer]

@Shand359 If you are talking about the Arducam 64mp Auto focus camera then yes it does work. I got one as I was curious to try the autofocus. When I realised the autofocus was based upon a voice coil I quickly gave up as it requires refocusing every time the power is lost, in my tests simply storing and resetting the focus position was not accurate enough.

It was a real pain to get lib-camera to recognise it and if I were honest I am not sure I could reproduce setting it up again. I ended up trying all sorts of drivers and eventually one worked.

[Alex-developer]

Eric

It's an imx477 so exactly the same as the hq camera 1.55 um.

It was a pain to get working, I just wanted to try the auto focus but to be honest being a voice coil focus it's not very good.

It will accept 180degree lenses and they are dead easy to change, despite what Arducam say !

This is a link to the one I tried https://thepihut.com/products/arducam-motorized-focus-12mp-imx477-hq-camera-for-raspberry-pi

Cheers

Alex

[Shand359]

One i have is the 64mp camera.... tried a number of things but stilll not got it working. I have contacted Arducam directly just in case i have a faulty unit...

[morrowwm]

It will accept 180degree lenses and they are dead easy to change, despite what Arducam say !

Apologies for waking the dead @Alex-developer , but could you provide a link to replacement lenses for Arducams? I have an Arducam 16MP Autofocus. The lens it came with has too narrow a field of view for allsky use.

[Alex-developer]

No problem :-)

From memory I just used some m12 lenses from Amazon, they were nothing special. I was more testing the autofocus rather than the lenses

The biggest issue with these cameras is that they use a voice coil for focusing so will lose the focus when power cycled.

[morrowwm]

OK, I plan on getting a wider view camera+lens, with manual focus. Maybe this: https://www.arducam.com/product/presalearducam-12mp-imx708-hdr-120-wide-angle-camera-module-with-m12-lens-for-raspberry-pi/

[EricClaeys]

@morrowwm, Allsky probably doesn't currently support that camera but could. Also, some of the Arducam cameras can't take very long exposures, e.g., 10 seconds, which makes them pretty useless for an allsky camera.
I would need the output from these commands when the camera is connected:

libcamera-still  --list-cameras 
libcamera-hello -v

[morrowwm]

I'm currently using an Arducam 16MP Autofocus I had lying around. It's annoying because of the autofocus, and has too narrow a field of view. It reports the attached info from libcamera-hello -v.

I've done up to 60 second exposures, with no complaints from libcamera-still. But you have me thinking now, it doesn't really expose the whole time.

arducam_16MP_AF_libcamera_imx519.txt

What would benefit the allsky community more currently? Another camera to support, or more use of the RpiHQ?

[EricClaeys]

@morrowwm, Allsky already supports that camera.
Try running libcamera-still --shutter 60000 --metadata /tmp/metadata.json
and then post the /tmp/metadata.json file. That will tell you the settings it used, including (hopefully) the actual exposure time and sensor temperature. Let's see if it exposed for the whole 60 seconds (60,000 ms).

You want to DISABLE the autofocus when using Allsky or else it tries to autofocus for every image. I forget how to do that, but you can probably figure it out by running libcamera-hello --help. Once you get it, add that argument to the "Extra Arguments` setting in the WebUI.

[morrowwm]

My libcamera version might be too old: --metadata does not write to a file. The text file I attached in the comment above is what it outputs. I think I have a libcamera version provided by arducam. Their website says it should work with the current baseline version of libcamera.

libcamera build: v0.1.0+146-cff216fa-dirty (2023-12-05T10:19:54+00:00)

A couple of days ago, I added

--autofocus-mode=manual --lens-position 0

as Extra Arguments. I think it's helping focus, but we've had constant cloud cover since I did this. :)

[EricClaeys]

Does it work with the libcamera that comes with the Pi?
Does libcamera-still--help show the --metadata option?

[morrowwm]

Does it work with the libcamera that comes with the Pi?
On second thought, I am not sure I actually loaded the Arducam version. I think libcamera recognized this camera right away.

Does libcamera-still--help show the --metadata option?
Yes:

~ $ libcamera-still --help | grep meta
  --metadata arg                        Save captured image metadata to a file or "-" for stdout
  --metadata-format arg (=json)         Format to save the metadata in, either txt or json (requires --metadata)

[EricClaeys]

When you tried libcamera-still --shutter 60000 --metadata /tmp/metadata.json with the standard libcamera-still, did it create /tmp/metadata.json? If so, what was in it?

[morrowwm]

No, it didn't create it. I also just tried on a fresh install of Raspbian 1:6.1.63-1+rpt1 (2023-11-24) armv6l GNU/Linux on a Raspberry Pi Zero W with classic Pi camera, and it also did not create the file. Strange.

I'm going to abandon this camera, though, and get a PiHQ one with wider angle lens. So while I appreciate this discussion as an academic exercise, I'm ready to close it.

[EricClaeys]

Closing Issue. Support for camera in current release.