“Camera Module 3” is the third generation of the camera lens for Raspberry Pi. It uses a Sony IMX708 sensor with autofocus and HDR. These are the main features:

  • Resolution: 11.9 Megapixels
  • Size in pixels: 4608 x 2592 pixels
  • Minimum depth of field: 10 cm (5 cm for the Camera Module 3 Wide)
  • Focal length: 4.74mm (2.75 mm for the Camera Module 3 Wide)
  • Focal Ratio: F1.8 (F2.2 for the Camera Module 3 Wide)
  • Maximum exposure time: 112 s

Camera Module 3 connects to the Raspberry Pi via the CSI (Cameral Serial Interface) connector. Warning: the port is very similar to the one used by the display, you need to pay attention to the position and the writing on the board.

Scheda Raspberry Pi 4

To open the connector it is necessary to grasp it by the narrower sides and lift it gently. Then you insert the cable with the blue side pointing towards the Ethernet port.

Connettore CSI su Raspberry Pi 4

Finally, the connector must be closed by pushing it down (gently).

CSI connector on Raspberry Pi 4

You can use the libcamera-jpeg and libcamera-vid applications to check if the camera works. For example libcamera-jpeg --list-cameras shows the installed cameras:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ libcamera-jpeg --list-cameras
Available cameras
-----------------
0 : imx708 [4608x2592] (/base/soc/i2c0mux/i2c@1/imx708@1a)
    Modes: 'SRGGB10_CSI2P' : 1536x864 [120.13 fps - (0, 0)/4608x2592 crop]
                             2304x1296 [56.03 fps - (0, 0)/4608x2592 crop]
                             4608x2592 [14.35 fps - (0, 0)/4608x2592 crop]

To capture an image you can use the command:

libcamera-jpeg -o test.jpg –immediate

The following photograph shows the result of the command: a selfie of the Raspberry Pi board.

Camera Module 3 example

References