Raspberry Camera in dark/low light room Vs Smartphone

Python
,
1

Hello,

I’m using a raspberry pi, python and opencv to capture a video and convert each frame to a heatmap.

The python-opencv processing and logic is working perfectly and each frame is displayed and processed correctly.

The raspberry pi and the camera are in a low light/dark room.

The problem in this case is the amount of light received by the camera is much lower than using a smartphone.

The smartphone will return brighter colours, much brighter whites, while the raspberry camera is returning pale and smooth greys.

I have tried setting several values using VideoCapture.set to set contrast, brightness, saturation, manual exposure, gain, … without luck.

I have also tried to enable night mode, to increase the exposure, but I couldn’t find any clue on how to do this using opencv::VideoCapture.

Do you know how to possibly increase the amount of light processed and accepted by the pi camera?

Thank you

More details:
Raspberry Pi 3 B+
OS: Raspios buster
Camera: https://www.az-delivery.de/en/products/raspberrykamerav1-3
Smartphone: Nokia 5.3 (300€phone)

2

what phone do you have? what did it cost?

that pi camera is very low-end. it’s sold for 8 euros. Omnivision 5647. manufacturer indicates it has existed since 2009, i.e. comparably old technology.

those cameras are hardly comparable.

3

I’ve updated the original post.

It’s a Nokia 5.3
It costs around 300€ 1 year ago.

Could you link me to an updated camera for raspberry?

Maybe these ones?

Waveshare IMX219-120-Camera

https://www.waveshare.com/IMX219-120-Camera.htm

Pi Camera Module V2 8MP

Thank you!