camera module usage

[patel_swagat]

i was thinking of using a different camera module like the one in link below

http://www.ebay.in/itm/MAIN-CAMERA-MODU ... 4897.l4275

Is it possible to use any camera module used in mobile phones or we have to buy the raspberry pi camera module. what should be done to use it with raspberry pi?

i wanted to use it because i have a mobile phone which is not functioning so i can take off its camera and this module is cheap and of good quality too.. so please help friends if you have done something of this kind or you have any idea of how this is possible..if you have any material available online or any books so that i can know more about camera module then i will be very thankful.

[DirkS]

i was thinking of using a different camera module like the one in link below

http://www.ebay.in/itm/MAIN-CAMERA-MODU ... 4897.l4275

No, that's not possible.

[patel_swagat]

thanks but may i know why???

[DirkS]

From the FAQ at http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/faqs/#camera

7. CAN I HAVE A CAMERA WITH MORE MP’S?
No, this is the only camera module that is compatible with the Raspberry Pi. There are currently no plans to release a higher-resolution sensor.

There are actually some (Chinese?) knockoffs around but from a post here on the forum it looks as if the quality is not always very good (http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt ... 43&t=81500)
Another alternative would be to use a USB camera, but these have other drawbacks.

Gr.
Dirk.

[jack23233]

re: using USB cameras, can you give a few examples of their problems

[DirkS]

re: using USB cameras, can you give a few examples of their problems

The main one is speed, or lack of it. This could be a problem e.g. when you want high resolution video from a USB cam to stream over the network.
On the Pi these streams both use the same channel (= USB) so that could be a bottleneck.

IIRC with USB cams you also cannot profit from hardware encoding and decoding. Everything would have to done by the CPU.

With the Pi camera the USB would only have to deal with the network stream, and a lot of the processing is done by the GPU.

Gr.
Dirk.