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A few notes for those going down this path (I'm doing the same). 1. This doesn't work on OSX yet. Works really well in windows though. 2. There's no microphon
by bmurphy1976 6y ago
A few notes for those going down this path (I'm doing the same).
1. This doesn't work on OSX yet. Works really well in windows though.
2. There's no microphone. I'm looking for a directional mic setup for the rpi but haven't found anything I'm satisfied with yet.
3. The 6mm lens is total crap. The 16mm lens is decent but the zoom makes it difficult to use as a webcam. I'm still looking for a good rectilinear lens in the 4mm to 8mm range that has minimal distortion and doesn't cost an arm and a leg (after all, the whole point of this is to do it on the cheap). There's no obvious candidate yet.
4. Commonlands has a couple M12 lenses that look promising. I'd prefer a C mount but you have to go with what's available. I'm going to pull the trigger on one of them to test out when I get back from vacation.
5. Arducam has a bunch of lenses, but I find them to be very strange. Maybe it's a language barrier issue, but the videos and the marketing copy are all very odd and don't quite tell you what you want to know. It feels like a Chinese company masquerading as an English company. It's all weird enough that I'm not ready to pull the trigger and purchase one of their lenses.
6. Focusing is a pain in the ass with all these lenses. You will not have the same experience as a typical webcam but once you have the focus dialed in things look great. Just don't move.
7. The HQ camera is very capable but it's limited by the bandwidth limitations of the pi interface. 1080p 30fps is the max you'll get. Don't expect 4k video.
- ISL 6y agoRegarding point 7: Are there other interfaces like the Pi's, but with higher bandwidth, for the Sony sensors? I've had good luck making use of the Pi-cam in the lab, but would love to be able to configure them with a higher-bandwidth connection to a computer with a burlier processor/GPU.
- jimmies 6y agoWe just figured out How to solve point 1 about a week ago. It is now working well on macOS. Try it :)
- bmurphy1976 6y agoThat's great! I'll take a look first chance I get.
- McAtNite 6y agoI’m actually really excited about this! I had previously bought everything for this exact project and referenced the blog post on your GitHub for setting up. Unfortunately I got stuck on the Mac issue myself. I’ll definitely be taking a look at your work. Thanks for putting this together.
- atomicfiredoll 6y agoThank you for posting this list. I was actually looking at the Arducam lenses last night because I'd love to build my own webcam capable of a good image for light content creation, but that I could throw a 90 or 100 degree FoV lens on for calls with groups. I was starting to get a sense of the limitations you listed here and now I'll probably keep looking at some other options like re-purposing a used GoPro with a camlink, spending way more for a DSLR, or really cheaping out on a couple different lower quality cameras. If I can't figure anything out, maybe I'll revisit in 6-12 months. I think the article's author is right that today's webcams are boring. But I would go a step further and say that the webcam market really needs some of that patented disruption that people keep talking about.