Waveshare IMX378-190 12.3MP Fisheye Lens Camera for Raspberry Pi

Connect the camera's FPC cable directly to the Raspberry Pi's Camera Serial Interface (CSI) port. Ensure the cable's conductive pads face away from the Ethernet port. You may need to enable the camera interface in the Raspberry Pi OS configuration via 'sudo raspi-config' under 'Interface Options'. The included pitch cable can be used for alternative wiring or testing.

Use the standard Raspberry Pi camera libraries, such as 'picamera2' for Python, which supports the IMX378 sensor. After enabling the CSI interface in raspi-config, install the library via 'sudo apt install python3-picamera2'. You can then write Python scripts to capture still images or video streams, adjusting parameters like resolution and framerate to suit your computer vision application.

No, this camera features a fixed-focus lens set at the factory. The focus is optimized for a specific range, typically from approximately 1 meter to infinity, making it suitable for general wide-angle scene capture rather than macro photography. For projects requiring different focal planes, you would need to select a camera module with a variable-focus or manual-focus lens.

Yes, it supports video recording. The achievable framerate depends on the selected resolution. At the full 4056x3040 resolution, the framerate will be low (likely below 10 FPS). For smoother video, reduce the resolution (e.g., 1080p) within your software to achieve 30 FPS or higher. The rolling shutter may cause motion artifacts in fast-moving scenes, which is typical for this sensor type.