I don't know 'what' really to request from the camera module. I mean I think the PiCamera2 documentation really is quite anorexic when it comes to detailing out how to setup the library to get the most out of low light or night vision applications. I mean, in the whole of the documentation, there is only 1 small paragraph about "night" and "low light":
Really, that's all my search pulled up. If there is some ancillary documentation on this, would be glad to take a look at it.
I did start looking on the Arducam Forum for information, and there isn't much. I followed one thread with another customer trying to squeeze any performance out of the camera, but he was also disenchanted. I followed some of his findings to try and get more, but the results were quite dismal, there wasn't enough responsiveness out of the major Items I tried to warrant any further experimentation. I tried posting my findings over on that forum, but it wouldn't allow me to post images, so I just posted over on the Raspberry PI forum and put the link to it back on Arducam. I do this for Posterity to help the next guy along so they know they are not going crazy or to avoid the same pitfalls / time wasters. If someone did actually step forth and have the magic bullet tweak, then I would be ecstatic!
Really, in the Pi Camera2 Documentation there should be groups of parameters that can work together, and a blurb about which parameters would be good for night/IR/low light, and which parameters would work against it. I mean If I wrote the library, I would want my customers to be able to get the maximum benefit out of it. In fact I would be showcasing how much a little tweaking of the parameters could reveal outstanding results with before and after photos. At least providing a few scenarios like Daytime, Nighttime, Daybreak/Sunset (sunshine washing out camera) Twilight (very low light) and showing the user how to adjust the settings to best compensate for these conditions. If Nothing else, this also might be my pet project to make sure my companies cameras are well ahead of any 3rd party systems and would be showing the potential buyers why my company was #1 in the business. Would be nice to have some sort of libcamera lab with all of those parameters with various UI sliders so you could quickly create a custom configuration script by watching what was happening to a real-time video feed as you applied the camera controls. That would be stellar. I didn't see much on this, a few user provided fragments here often missing necessary details. I just wanted to leverage this thing, not become a camera tweaking expert. I had really hoped someone else had pioneered in all that and this technology that was being sold was best of era.
I can understand PI's stance on 3rd party cameras, but truth be told, I got more feedback on Arducam than I did the PI's V3 NOIR WIDE Camera's Failure to respond to IR Light that I posted a while back:
viewtopic.php?p=2273865#p2273865
Code:
Night - an HDR mode that combines multiplelow light images, and can recover somehighlights (Pi 5 only)I did start looking on the Arducam Forum for information, and there isn't much. I followed one thread with another customer trying to squeeze any performance out of the camera, but he was also disenchanted. I followed some of his findings to try and get more, but the results were quite dismal, there wasn't enough responsiveness out of the major Items I tried to warrant any further experimentation. I tried posting my findings over on that forum, but it wouldn't allow me to post images, so I just posted over on the Raspberry PI forum and put the link to it back on Arducam. I do this for Posterity to help the next guy along so they know they are not going crazy or to avoid the same pitfalls / time wasters. If someone did actually step forth and have the magic bullet tweak, then I would be ecstatic!
Code:
tf = Picamera2.load_tuning_file("calibration/imx290.json",dir='.') picam2 = Picamera2(tuning=tf) #picam2 = Picamera2() w = 1920 h = 1080 picam2.configure(picam2.create_video_configuration(main={"size": (w, h)})) picam2.camera_controls['ExposureMode'] = 'nightpreview' picam2.camera_controls['AnalogGain'] = (1.0, 16.0, None) picam2.camera_controls['ExposureTime'] = (0, 66666, None) picam2.camera_controls['ExposureValue'] = (-8.0, 8.0, 0.0) #Would like to set the following controls with the picamera2.camera_controls #picam2.camera_controls['Sharpness'] = 0 #picam2.camera_controls['Contrast'] = 0 #picam2.camera_controls['Saturation'] = 0 #picam2.camera_controls['Brightness'] = 1 #picam2.camera_controls['ISO'] = 0 #picam2.camera_controls['DigitalGain'] = 1 #picam2.camera_controls['FrameRate'] = 0 #picam2.camera_controls['AnalogGain'] = 1 #picam2.camera_controls['DigitalGain'] = 0 #picam2.camera_controls['MeteringMode'] = 'average' #picam2.camera_controls['ShutterSpeed'] = 0 #picam2.camera_controls['ExposureCompensation'] = 0 #picam2.camera_controls['AwbMode'] = 'auto' #picam2.camera_controls['AwbEnable'] = (False, True, None) #picam2.camera_controls['ImageEffect'] = 'none' #picam2.camera_controls['ColorEffects'] = (1.0, 1.0) #picam2.camera_controls['Rotation'] = 0 #picam2.camera_controls['Flip'] = (False, False) #picam2.camera_controls['Drc'] = 'off' #picam2.camera_controls['Hflip'] = False #picam2.camera_controls['Vflip'] = False #picam2.camera_controls['ShutterSpeed'] = 0Really, in the Pi Camera2 Documentation there should be groups of parameters that can work together, and a blurb about which parameters would be good for night/IR/low light, and which parameters would work against it. I mean If I wrote the library, I would want my customers to be able to get the maximum benefit out of it. In fact I would be showcasing how much a little tweaking of the parameters could reveal outstanding results with before and after photos. At least providing a few scenarios like Daytime, Nighttime, Daybreak/Sunset (sunshine washing out camera) Twilight (very low light) and showing the user how to adjust the settings to best compensate for these conditions. If Nothing else, this also might be my pet project to make sure my companies cameras are well ahead of any 3rd party systems and would be showing the potential buyers why my company was #1 in the business. Would be nice to have some sort of libcamera lab with all of those parameters with various UI sliders so you could quickly create a custom configuration script by watching what was happening to a real-time video feed as you applied the camera controls. That would be stellar. I didn't see much on this, a few user provided fragments here often missing necessary details. I just wanted to leverage this thing, not become a camera tweaking expert. I had really hoped someone else had pioneered in all that and this technology that was being sold was best of era.
I can understand PI's stance on 3rd party cameras, but truth be told, I got more feedback on Arducam than I did the PI's V3 NOIR WIDE Camera's Failure to respond to IR Light that I posted a while back:
viewtopic.php?p=2273865#p2273865
Statistics: Posted by UltimateCodeWarrior — Mon Jan 13, 2025 7:50 pm