As I mentioned in my last post, I’m working on a project with the Raspberry Pi 2 and one of the things I’m doing is playing around with the camera module.
This little camera is not bad (similar to a cell phone camera), but it definitely does best at a bit of a distance. Probably 6-10 feet at least. I need to be a bit closer to get enough detail and also due to the limited spacing between the grow lights and the seed trays. I ended up picking up one of those cheap little sets of lenses you can get for cell phones. It’s not going to win fine photography awards, but it’s just fine for my needs. The kit includes a fisheye, wide angle, macro and telephoto lens. Here’s a closeup of one of the lenses in place.
My camera mount is a very primitive holder I threw together out of scrap wood, but it does the job.
Here is a wider shot of the seed starting area with the camera mount in place. I have it taking photos every 30 minutes of one of my pepper and tomato seed starting trays.
Here is an initial time lapse video showing some of the seeds sprouting and growing. This was taken over the course of 5 days, March 26-30. I do change the camera position and seed tray position slightly, so it’s a bit jerky in spots.