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The Raspberry Pi Camera Module v2 replaced the original Camera Module in April 2016. The v2 Camera Module has a Sony IMX219 8-megapixel sensor (compared to the 5-megapixel OmniVision OV5647 sensor of the original camera).
The Camera Module can be used to take high-definition video, as well as stills photographs. It’s easy to use for beginners, but has plenty to offer advanced users if you’re looking to expand your knowledge. There are lots of examples online of people using it for time-lapse, slow-motion, and other video cleverness. You can also use the libraries we bundle with the camera to create effects.
You can read all the gory details about IMX219 and the Exmor R back-illuminated sensor architecture on Sony’s website, but suffice to say this is more than just a resolution upgrade: it’s a leap forward in image quality, colour fidelity, and low-light performance. It supports 1080p30, 720p60 and VGA90 video modes, as well as still capture. It attaches via a 15cm ribbon cable to the CSI port on the Raspberry Pi.
The camera works with all models of Raspberry Pi 1, 2, and 3. It can be accessed through the MMAL and V4L APIs, and there are numerous third-party libraries built for it, including the Picamera Python library. See the Getting Started with Picamera resource to learn how to use it.
The camera module is very popular in home security applications, and in wildlife camera traps.
… Buy now →- Watch the video above and refer to the documentation page to connect your Camera Module or Pi NoIR. You’ll need to connect the camera module to the CSI port, located behind the Ethernet port, and enable the camera software. Once you’re connected, see our resource on Getting started with Picamera. … Continue reading →
- Thousands of learners worldwide take their first steps into text-based programming using the Python programming language. Python is not only beginner-friendly, but is also used extensively in industry. In 2015, Python developer Daniel Pope, who has a keen interest in education, noticed that beginners often have great ideas for creating projects but struggle because the… … Continue reading →
- Hello and welcome to Issue #150! This newsletter comes to you from Mountain View, California where I’m at Picademy USA with James, Matt and Courtney. We just opened applications for the next training which takes place in Baltimore in August. In case you missed it, we released a new camera module this week – the… … Continue reading →
- Get started with the Raspberry Pi camera module, using Python and picamera. You’ll take still pictures, record video, and apply image effects. … Continue reading →
- The Raspberry Pi Foundation and ESA Education are excited to announce that 232 teams participating in Mission Space Lab of this year’s European Astro Pi Challenge have achieved Flight Status. That means they will have their computer programs run on the International Space Station (ISS) later this month! Mission Space Lab gives teams of students… … Continue reading →
- You can now watch and share our recording of this week’s live stream coding session on YouTube. This… … Continue reading →
- Join us for Digital Making at Home: this week, young people can do stop motion and time-lapse animation with us! Through Digital Making at Home, we invite kids all over the world to code along with us and our new videos every week. So get your Raspberry Pi and Camera Module ready! We’re using them… … Continue reading →
- Don’t blink or you’ll miss it! What do we mean by ‘it’ exactly? It’s EVERYTHING — the world… … Continue reading →
- This week’s guest coder Sophie made a game about saving turtles with Mr C on our live stream.… … Continue reading →
- So this happened. And we are buzzing! You’re most likely aware of the Astro Pi Challenge. In case you’re not, it’s a wonderfully exciting programme organised by the European Space Agency (ESA) and us at Raspberry Pi. Astro Pi challenges European young people to write scientific experiments in code, and the best experiments run aboard… … Continue reading →
- The end of the academic year is here, and we are marking the occasion by celebrating teachers from all over the world. Since last September, we’ve run a whole host of programmes that teachers have been involved in. From training with us at Picademy to building apocalyptic projects for Pioneers, from running Code Clubs, Dojos,… … Continue reading →
- This week, the ten winning Astro Pi Mission Space Lab teams got to take part in a video conference with ESA Astronaut Tim Peake! A brief history of Astro Pi In 2014, Raspberry Pi Foundation partnered with the UK Space Agency and the European Space Agency to fly two Raspberry Pi computers to the International… … Continue reading →
- Hello everyone, This week, issue 5 of Hello World is out, and Astro Pi Mission Space Lab data is in! Check out the Astro Pi Twitter feed for wonderful images of Earth from space, captured by code written by students and run on Raspberry Pis on the International Space Station. We also discovered Brian Mix’s… … Continue reading →
- Before our beloved SpaceDave left the Raspberry Pi Foundation to join the ranks of the European Space Agency (ESA) — and no, we’re still not jealous *ahem* — he kindly drafted us one final blog post about the Astro Pi upgrades heading to the International Space Station today! So here it is. Enjoy! We are… … Continue reading →
- Tim Rowledge produces and sells wonderful replicas of the cases which our Astro Pis live in aboard the International Space Station. Here is the story of how he came to do this. Over to you, Tim! When the Astro Pi case was first revealed a couple of years ago, the collective outpouring of ‘Squee!’ it… … Continue reading →
- Lasers! Cookies! Raspberry Pi! We’re buzzing with excitement about sharing our latest YouTube video with you, which comes directly from the kitchen of maker Estefannie Explains It All! Estefannie Explains It All + Raspberry Pi When Estefannie visited Pi Towers earlier this year, we introduced her to the Raspberry Pi Digital Curriculum and the free… … Continue reading →
- In 2015, The Raspberry Pi Foundation built two space-hardened Raspberry Pi units, or Astro Pis, to run student code on board the International Space Station (ISS). Astro Pi upgrades Each school year we run an Astro Pi challenge to find the next generation of space scientists to program them. After the students have their code run… … Continue reading →
- In today’s post, I’m going to share the tales of three Jams: how and why they got started. Norwich Raspberry Jam Norwich is a place where I’ve always hoped there would be a Jam. It’s a tech city in the East of England and there’s plenty going on there, but so far no one has been running a… … Continue reading →
- As well as working with classroom teachers and supporting learning in schools, Raspberry Pi brings computing and digital making to educators and learners in all sorts of other settings. I recently attended Wintercamp, a camp for Scouts at Gilwell Park. With some help from Brian and Richard from Vodafone, I ran a Raspberry Pi activity space… … Continue reading →
- Happy new year to everyone! We’re back with a new programme of Picademy events for 2017. All our UK events have been scheduled up to the end of the year, so you can look ahead and choose something at a location and date that is convenient. For the uninitiated, Picademy is a free CPD programme that… … Continue reading →
- Hello there! Did you get up to anything for Hour of Code this week? We had a great time here at Pi Towers, introducing people both young and old to Scratch, Minecraft, the Camera Module, animation, and much more. It was a wonderful experience to watch people write their first line of code and to see… … Continue reading →
- Laura: MagPi founder and Scottish Pi event organiser extraordinaire Dr. William Bell has sent us this report from the home of the World Wide Web itself… CERN is the heart of particle physics research, where scientists are working to discover new phenomena using high-energy equipment. These research challenges have driven inventions, such as the World Wide Web and… … Continue reading →
- It’s been five years since we made our first appearance at Maker Faire New York. Back in 2011, we were still showing demonstrations of the Raspberry Pi, prior to its release the following spring. This year, we had prominent billing alongside the robots and rockets! Maker Faire New York ran from 1-2 October, and was as… … Continue reading →
- If this post gives you a sense of déjà-vu it’s because, last month, we announced a web-based Sense HAT emulator in partnership with US-based startup Trinket. Today, we’re announcing another Sense HAT emulator designed to run natively on your Raspberry Pi desktop, instead of inside a browser. Developed by Dave Jones, it’s intended for people who own… … Continue reading →
- Now that British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake is back on the ground it’s time for the final Astro Pi mission update: the summary of the experiment results from the International Space Station (ISS). We’ve been holding this back to give the winners some time to publish the results of their experiments themselves. Back in 2015… … Continue reading →
- Before humans took to the skies in metal tubes powered by jet engines, there was a gentler mode of transport that we used to conquer the skies: the humble balloon. After the success of last year’s launches, we are giving you another opportunity to blaze a trail across the sky and become a pioneer of… … Continue reading →
- Hi everyone In case you missed it: the Pi Zero was re-launched on Monday – it’s still $5 but comes with a camera connector so you can use the camera module (old or new) with it. This week we added a new About Us page to the website, which includes a collection of downloads about… … Continue reading →
- In this resource, you will make a micro:bit-controlled selfie booth with a Raspberry Pi and camera module, using Python. This is a great way to get started with hardware and simple text programming. … Continue reading →
- In the summer of 2015, President Obama made call to action to create a Nation of Makers within the United States. We made a commitment in response to that call: we would train 100 teachers in digital making with Raspberry Pi in 2016. Last weekend, we made a giant leap towards fulfilling that commitment with… … Continue reading →
- Teachers! Become the envy of your maker friends and colleagues by signing up to Picademy@Google Manchester, our free, two-day, professional development experience for professional educators. We will give you the tools and confidence to create inspiring physical computing projects and lessons using the Raspberry Pi. Thanks to our partnership with Google, the event is free to… … Continue reading →
- In a month’s time we’re sending two Raspberry Pis to the International Space Station as part of two Astro Pi flight units. We’ve all been beavering away for the last 12 months in preparation, and the launch date is almost upon us. Tim Peake is currently doing his final press conference in the UK before… … Continue reading →
- There are many excellent things to be found in last week’s release of Raspbian Jessie and we’ve been keeping one of the best ones tucked under our big Raspberry Pi-shaped hat. In the Programming menu on the desktop you’ll find a new version of Scratch, our favourite programming language for beginners. Tim Rowledge, who has… … Continue reading →
- The road to space is long and winding, but the two Astro Pi flight units are almost there! The next thing for us after this is to hand over the final payload to the European Space Agency so it can be loaded onto the Soyuz-45S rocket for launch on December 15th with British ESA Astronaut… … Continue reading →
- Just over a week ago now we closed the secondary school phase of the Astro Pi competition after a one week extension to the deadline. Students from all over the UK have uploaded their code hoping that British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake will run it on the ISS later this year! Last week folks from… … Continue reading →
- You can’t just take a Raspberry Pi into space in your pocket or an old soft scoop ice cream tub. It’s too spiky for one thing. What you need is a block of aluminium the size of your head and some mad milling skills to make the best Pi case ever. Dave Honess explains: The… … Continue reading →
- In February Rachel Rayns, our Creative Producer, announced and opened entries for the new Raspberry Pi Creative Technologists mentorship programme. We selected final participants from the applicants at the beginning of this month – we’ve got a wonderful group of young people. Last weekend we held the induction weekend here at Pi Towers in Cambridge, which involved Pecha… … Continue reading →
- Stop! Before you read anything please watch NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman giving us a quick fly-through of the ISS. In the video you see various computers and screens on the walls and it’s crazy to think that two Raspberry Pis will soon be there alongside them. Even crazier to think that you can get your… … Continue reading →
- Dave: We’re really happy to announce a new project in partnership with British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake, UK Space and the European Space Agency: we’re sending Raspberry Pis to the International Space Station! Read on to find out how to get your code running on them… Leading UK space organisations have joined forces with British… … Continue reading →
- At Picademy, our awesome free training course for teachers, I run a workshop to introduce teachers to using the camera module with Python, and show them how to wire up a GPIO button they can use to trigger the camera. I always make a point of saying “now you know this, what can you make it… … Continue reading →
- Table of Contents: INTRODUCTION What is a Raspberry Pi? Can I buy shares in the Raspberry Pi Foundation? BUYING AND SHIPPING Where can I buy a Raspberry Pi? How much does it cost? What do I get when I buy one? Why is the price in US Dollars? You are a UK company! Can I… … Continue reading →
- As you may have heard, the Boardroom at Pi Towers contains a wall covered in the poster competition entries from before Christmas 2013. We hold all our meetings in this room, and even run workshops in it during Picademy. It’s also fairly common knowledge that I have a short attention span, and that on occasion… … Continue reading →
- In this resource, you will make a stop motion animation machine that includes a Raspberry Pi and a camera module to take pictures with a push button connected to the Pi’s GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) pins to act as a trigger. You will control the animation machine by writing code in Python. … Continue reading →
- Liz: Last week’s Cambridge Raspberry Jam was one of the biggest yet. I asked the organisers, Michael Horne (whom you might know as Recantha: he has a brilliant Raspberry Pi blog, which you should check out) and Tim Richardson, whether they’d be prepared to write a guest post for us about the event. They’ve done… … Continue reading →
- Registration is now open for the European Astro Pi Challenge 2024/25! The Astro Pi Challenge, an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, offers young people the incredible opportunity to write computer programs that will run in space. Young people can take part in two exciting missions for… … Continue reading →
- Over 15000 teams of young people from across Europe had their computer programs run on board the International Space Station (ISS) this month as part of this year’s European Astro Pi Challenge. Astro Pi is run in collaboration by us and ESA Education, and offers two ways to get involved: Mission Zero and Mission Space… … Continue reading →
- In brief We are excited to share that 294 teams of young people participating in this year’s Astro Pi Mission Space Lab achieved Flight Status: their programs will run on the Astro Pis installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in April. Mission Space Lab is part of the European Astro Pi Challenge, an ESA… … Continue reading →
- In Hello World issue 18, available as a free PDF download, teacher Michael Jones shares how to use Teachable Machine with learners aged 13–14 in your classroom to investigate issues of accuracy and ethics in machine learning models. Machine learning: Accuracy and ethics The landscape for working with machine learning/AI/deep learning has grown considerably over… … Continue reading →
- We and our partners at ESA Education are excited to announce that 299 teams of young people who entered Mission Space Lab this year have achieved flight status as part of the 2021/22 European Astro Pi Challenge. This means that these young people’s programs are the first ever to run on the two upgraded Astro… … Continue reading →
- This morning, our two new Astro Pi units launched into space. Actual, real-life space. The new Astro Pi units each consist of a Raspberry Pi computer with a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera and a host of sensors, all housed inside a special space-ready case that makes the hardware suitable for the International Space Station… … Continue reading →
- We and our partners ESA Education are delighted to announce that for this year’s Mission Space Lab of the European Astro Pi Challenge, a record number of 799 teams from 23 countries sent us their ideas for experiments to run on board the International Space Station (ISS). This is an incredible 83% increase from last… … Continue reading →
- The Raspberry Pi Foundation and ESA Education are excited to announce the winners and highly commended Mission Space Lab teams of the 2020/21 European Astro Pi Challenge! In Mission Space Lab, teams of young people aged up to 19 create scientific experiments that run on the International Space Station’s two Astro Pi computers — space-hardened… … Continue reading →
- Our team here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, in collaboration with ESA Education, is excited to announce the successful deployment of young people’s programs aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for the European Astro Pi Challenge 2020/21! Across both Astro Pi missions — Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab — 14,993 participants created an amazing… … Continue reading →
- The team at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, in collaboration with ESA Education, is excited to announce that all of this year’s successful Astro Pi programs have now run aboard the International Space Station (ISS)! Record numbers of young people took part in Astro Pi Mission Zero This year, a record 6351 teams of students and… … Continue reading →
- In this year’s round of Astro Pi Mission Space Lab, 135 teams will run their experiments on the ISS! CSA Astronaut David Saint-Jacques congratulates all the participants on behalf of ESA and the Raspberry Pi Foundation. (Find the French version of the video at the bottom of this blog post.) Astro Pi Challenge 2018/2019 In… … Continue reading →
- Ever wanted to run your own experiment in space? Then you’re in luck! ESA Education, in collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, is pleased to announce the launch of the 2018/2019 European Astro Pi Challenge! In this challenge, we offer students and young people the amazing opportunity to conduct scientific investigations in space by writing… … Continue reading →
- Today we’re launching a new partnership between the Scouts and the Raspberry Pi Foundation that will help tens of thousands of young people learn crucial digital skills for life. In this blog post, I want to explain what we’ve got planned, why it matters, and how you can get involved. This is personal First, let… … Continue reading →
- Astro Pi is back! Today we’re excited to announce the 2017-18 European Astro Pi challenge in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA). We are searching for the next generation of space scientists. Astro Pi is an annual science and coding challenge where student-written code is run on the International Space Station under the oversight of an ESA… … Continue reading →
- In October last year, with the European Space Agency and CNES, we launched the first ever European Astro Pi challenge. We asked students from all across Europe to write code for the flight of French ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Proxima mission. The winners were announced back in… … Continue reading →
- Right now, 400km above the Earth aboard the International Space Station, are two very special pieces of hardware. Two Raspberry Pi computers are currently orbiting our planet, each equipped with a Sense HAT, a camera and a special aluminium flight case – and children all over Europe have the chance to program them. Last year,… … Continue reading →
- Yesterday, GitHub announced a new initiative to help students, teachers and schools use GitHub for collaboration and sharing to provide a better learning experience for all: GitHub Education. If you don’t already know, GitHub is a software projects hosting service – it’s a kind of social networking site for code projects. You use version control… … Continue reading →