Raspberry Pi Global Shutter Camera addresses rolling shutter artefacts

You wait ages for a new Raspberry Pi camera and then two come along together… After the Pi Camera Module 3 released in January, welcome the Raspberry Pi Global Shutter Camera.

It's a 1.6-megapixel camera – built around Sony's IMX296 sensor – that's aimed at specialists working in machine vision and fast motion photography applications.

"With a large pixel size of 3.45μm × 3.45μm providing high light sensitivity, the Global Shutter Camera can operate with short exposure times (as low as 30μs with adequate lighting), an advantage for high-speed photography."

Priced at $50, it's available now.

Eben Upton explains the problem of rolling shutter artefacts, which the new device addresses:

"Every camera we’ve released to date, from 2014's Camera Module 1 to our High Quality Camera and beyond, has used a rolling shutter sensor. These sensors have a two-dimensional array of light-sensitive pixels, which generate an analogue value proportional to the amount of light falling on the pixel during the exposure time; and a row of analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs), which convert these analogue values into digital values which are fed back to your Raspberry Pi."

"The row of ADCs is connected to each row of the pixel array in turn, so each row is sampled at a slightly different time. Provided there is no motion in the scene this isn't a problem, but once things start to move — and particularly if something is moving fast — we start to see rolling shutter artefacts. Linear motion results in compression, stretching, or shearing of the moving object. Rotary motion can create some very odd-looking shapes indeed."

You can use the Global Shutter Camera with any Raspberry Pi computer that has a CSI camera connector, apparently, but you’ll need to update Raspberry Pi OS to use the new camera: (sudo apt update; sudo apt full-upgrade; sudo reboot and you’re good to go, they say).

Finally, for credit where it's due, Raspberry Pi highlights that the Global Shutter Camera hardware was designed by Simon Martin. Naush Patuck, Nick Hollinghurst, David Plowman, Serge Schneider, and Dave Stevenson wrote the software.

Alasdair Allan, Simon Martin, David Plowman, Andrew Scheller, and Liz Upton worked on documentation. Austin Su led on sourcing. Jack Willis designed the packaging, and Brian O Halloran took the photos and video.

See also: THine kit extends Raspberry Pi camera-to-board range