Fixed / wall-powered studio camera build (4K 30fps)

[geerlingguy]

I have been looking for ways to optimize my studio setup for YouTube recording for years. A CinePi camera would not only be one way to make my workflow better—it would be extremely fitting to record videos about Raspberry Pis... on a Raspberry Pi :)

The features I would like (in order of importance):

• Ability to get decent depth of field (to make background a few feet behind me slightly blurred while I'm sharp)
• 4K 30 fps output (either HDMI or SDI)
• Remote control ability (ideally be able to have it boot quickly, and either have Home Assistant integration or just output automatically over HDMI)

In a studio setting, I have a lot of control over lighting, color, focal distance... which should make some of the controls needed for handheld/field operation unnecessary.

I currently have the following sensors available to build around:

• Raspberry Pi HQ Camera (IMX477 - 7.9mm diagonal, might require these improvements for 4K30)
• Arducam Klarity (IMX283 - 15.86mm diagonal, used in @will127534's OneInchEye)
• Arducam Darksee (STARVIS 2 IMX678 - 8.86mm diagonal)

And of course I have a number of Pi 5s and CM5s to use.

[DM115-rpi-win]

4K30 would be nice, but I think there is a significant hardware limitation that keeps it from recording up to 4k. Looking at the specs for the Sony IMX477 directly from Sony's website https://www.sony-semicon.com/files/62/pdf/p-13_IMX477-AACK_Flyer.pdf suggests that the sensor itself doesn't have the bottleneck, so its either the pcb for the camera, or the Pi. Considering that we only conlcluded this with the Raspberry Pi 4, there is a chance that it would be possible on the 5. I don't have one myself, so I won't know for sure, but if it is possible, that would be reason enough for me to get one XD

[schoolpost]

I can confirm that 4K is possible with the Raspberry Pi HQ camera module + Raspberry Pi 5. ( requires a customized version of the IMX477 driver as referenced here: raspberrypi/linux#6208 )

Recording is whole other story, I haven't tried doing any H264 encoding of the 4K. It is possible 4K MJPEG can be done and also 4K can be output via the HDMI to be recorded via an external recorder.

The ISP itself can more than adequately handle the 4K sensor data.

[Carnarts]

Yes it's working and has been enabled to test by running:

sudo rpi-update pulls/6208

and adding overlay

dtoverlay=imx477,pi5

and disabling this

camera_auto_detect=1

Although I've not tested it much so far. It's good to see these new modes though :)