Arducam High-Resolution Autofocus Camera (16MP IMX519) for Raspberry Pi Buster OS

Introduction

Arducam High-Resolution Autofocus Camera (16MP IMX519) for Raspberry Pi Bullseye and Buster OS have the problem where the pre-installed libcamera is unable to open the Arducam 16MP IMX519 camera module. It required its own version of libcamera. Hence this tutorial is to show the steps to install and set up the camera module in Raspberry Pi Buster OS. There’s a drawback where the limited version of libcamera for this camera module will cause problems for the older camera modules such as compatibility to the libcamera.

These are the specifications of the camera:

**In this tutorial, the installation steps are for Raspberry Pi Buster OS. For the Raspberry Pi Bullseye OS, please refer to this tutorial page.

Hardware

• Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 1GB and Kits // Any RAM size such as 1GB, 4GB and 8GB should be no problem.
• Arducam High-Resolution Autofocus Camera (16MP IMX519)

Install and Set Up the Arducam Autofocus Camera

1. Download the bash scripts.

wget -O install_pivariety_pkgs.sh https://github.com/ArduCAM/Arducam-Pivariety-V4L2-Driver/releases/download/install_script/install_pivariety_pkgs.sh
chmod +rwx install_pivariety_pkgs.sh

2. Update the Raspberry Pi.

sudo apt update

3. Install libcamra-dev.

./install_pivariety_pkgs.sh -p libcamera_dev

4. Install libcamera-apps.

./install_pivariety_pkgs.sh -p libcamera_apps

5. Install the kernel driver.

./install_pivariety_pkgs.sh -p imx519_kernel_driver

After the installation is done, enter “y” under the “reboot now?(y/n):”.

6. Install the focus adjustment software.

git clone https://github.com/ArduCAM/Arducam-Pivariety-V4L2-Driver.git

7. For Raspberry Pi Buster OS, there are few additional steps have to do.
     - Open "/boot/config.txt". 

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

     - Delete the "#" at the "#dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d" under [all].
     - Save and Reboot.

Manually adjusting the focus

1. Open camera in live preview in the terminal.

libcamera-still -t 0

2. Open a new terminal at “File -> New Terminal” and enter the following lines to use the focus adjustment tool.

cd Arducam-Pivariety-V4L2-Driver/focus

python3 FocuserExample.py -d /dev/v4l-subdev1

3. At the focus adjustment tool, press the Up/Down Arrow for focus adjustment, press “Ctrl + C” to save, or “R” to reset.

Autofocus

1. Open camera in live preview with autofocus in the terminal. 

libcamera-still -t 0 --autofocus --keypress

2. The “--keypress” is to trigger multiple times of autofocus or refocus the camera by pressing “F” followed by the “Enter” key.

Video

References

• High Resolution Autofocus Camera for Raspberry Pi
• Arducam High-Resolution Auto-focus Camera for Raspberry Pi Review (Updated)