Raspberry Pi Global Shutter Camera

The Raspberry Pi Global Shutter Camera is a specialised 1.6-megapixel camera from Raspberry Pi that is able to capture rapid motion without introducing artefacts typical of rolling shutter cameras. It is ideally suited to fast motion photography and to machine vision applications, where even small amounts of distortion can seriously degrade inference performance.

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.

It features a 1.6MP Sony IMX296 sensor, and it has the same C/CS-mount lens assembly as the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera, for compatibility with the same broad variety of lenses. In common with other global shutter sensors, the IMX296 has a lower resolution than similarly sized rolling shutter sensors; a low pixel count is appropriate for machine vision applications, where high-resolution images are challenging to process in real time. The Global Shutter Camera’s lower resolution means that with appropriate lens magnification, an image suitable for processing by a machine vision model can be captured natively.

The Raspberry Pi Global Shutter Camera includes a C- to CS-mount adapter, a screwdriver, and a 150mm ribbon cable, as well as a removable plastic back cover for protection. It is compatible with any Raspberry Pi computer that has a CSI connector.