 If you're anything like me, you saw the new high-quality camera from the Pi Foundation and thought, well, the Pi Foundation comes out with some versatile and affordable hardware, like the Raspberry Pi. Surely with a name like that, it must be two things, a camera and high quality. But what do words mean? This is clearly not a camera until you build it, and by quality do they mean it never breaks down or do they mean it takes good pictures? Can this really be better than the other options out there? Can our sponsor Ridge Wallet really redefine the wallet with its compact frame and RFID blocking plates? Well, they sure want to. Check out how they can keep your wallet bulge down and use our offer code Linus to save 10% and get free worldwide shipping. The high-quality camera is the Pi Foundation's third generation camera module. It's compatible with every Raspberry Pi except the early Pi Zeroes, and like the V1 and V2, it connects to your Raspberry Pi with a ribbon cable via its MIPI CSI2 serial interface. Now, as you'd expect from a Pi product, the module has surprisingly competent specs, at least on paper, including Sony's IMX477 sensor, which is similar to what you'd find in a GoPro or DJI Mavic, a tripod mount, and a built-in metal lens mount that feels, well, high quality. As you'd also expect, it's reasonably priced at just $50. Although, by the time you factor in everything else you're going to need, a Raspberry Pi, SD card, and lens, it's more like $100 to $200. It's not strictly necessary, by the way, but for bonus marks, we also 3D printed a housing for ours that both protects it from incidental static discharge and from bumps and allows us to use it like a point-and-shoot camera. So, our config came in at about $185. Now, you obviously won't get the water resistance or image stabilization that you'd find on a GoPro, but for the price, it actually still looks pretty good. This sensor captures 12.33 megapixel stills in JPEG, PNG, and even RAW, and we can even shoot video at up to 1080p, 50fps, H.264. It supports changing the ISO, shutter speed, white balance, you know, all the usual camera controls, and thanks to its C-mount lens flange, pretty much any lens from very cheap to very expensive can be made to fit with the right adapter. You can even do in-camera image processing, like balancing colors or adding filters, like an oil paint or watercolor effect to your image. If you're feeling adventurous, you can add some AI and get notified when your neighbor takes your parking spot with basic image recognition. You can make your own smart door with Alexa integration, or you can have a highly customizable security camera with features that match or even exceed some of the high-end systems out there. Maybe the coolest part is that it also happens to be a whole computer with a built-in browser for you to check out lttstore.com. But there is a gotcha. To explain, let's talk semantics. The Raspberry Pi Foundation calls this a camera module in their documentation, but some other MIPI camera makers draw a distinction between a sensor module, which contains no ISP or image signal processor on board, meaning that the attached computer has to do all the work of denoising and debaring the raw sensor data, and a camera module, which does contain an ISP and outputs a pre-processed image to the host computer, which in many cases would also be a Raspberry Pi or similar. Now, a camera module costs more, but that extra hardware can perform more advanced processing compared to the Raspberry Pi's built-in ISP, or it can free up processing resources that can instead be dedicated to things like scene detection and facial recognition. It can also act as a kind of translation layer, simplifying upgrades by allowing the host system, which remember might not necessarily be a Raspberry Pi, to reuse existing drivers and software rather than requiring new ones to be written every time you want to plug in a new sensor. So, the gotcha. By some definitions, this is a sensor module, which hasn't gotten much software support yet, meaning that there are only a few graphical user interfaces that work with it at all, and even those have their limits. Pi Camera app, for example, gives you an easy-ish to use interface and support for both photo and video, but it hasn't been updated in nearly five years, other than a bug fix back in January, and might never be updated to fully support the new module's full resolution and features. That means to unlock its full potential, you'll need to have the know-how and patience to adjust parameters in command line. Now, it isn't all that difficult, and the provided guide has all the commands listed for easy reference with a short summary of each function, but it's very clear that if your goal is to quickly capture the moment, this ain't it, chief. Which isn't to say that we didn't try. Armed with our 3D-printed high-quality camera and a 3D-printed tripod, Brandon went on a photography expedition, and he's back to tell you about his findings. Let me start by saying this camera is such a cool idea. It's small, it's cheap, and like all Pi products, your imagination is the limit to its use. Now, I took the camera out for about an hour, and while it was a fun, new experience, I am overall disappointed with the results. In my testing, I took the Raspi camera out into the world with a Pixel 4 for comparison. I did my best to match the composition of the Raspi camera on the Pixel 4, since they were vastly different fields of view. Our Raspi camera setup was a very rough experience to use, and we had to use command line for all the actual camera functions, so I definitely would have preferred to have a dedicated shutter button. Usability aside, how does it compare to something like the Pixel 4? Well, that is where things get worse for the Raspi camera. Let's start with the positives. When it comes to the stills, the Raspi camera does an above average job with overall sharpness and detail, thanks to the Sony IMX477 sensor. Unfortunately, compared to the Pixel 4 stills, which I even zoomed in on to better match the field of views between the cameras, the Raspi has some rough processing issues. In all the photos I took, there is a clear magenta cast in the photos. It does a good job of isolating subjects with a shallow depth of field, but especially since these seamount lenses aren't anything special in terms of optics, the Pixel 4's portrait mode produces just as, if not a more pleasing bokeh. Video wise, unfortunately, the story is similar. The video is soft, lacks overall dynamic range, the detail can be improved a reasonable amount with higher quality lenses, but the sensor with this current processing feels like a phone video from about four years ago. It really goes to show that all the years of R&D Google and Apple have put into image processing make all the difference in a great result when you're working with limited hardware. I am sure with the right engineers working on the processing, this sensor module could be used for content creation, but for now it is best to use it for the many other applications you would use a camera for in general. Well, that's a bummer, but realistically, I wasn't expecting a $50 module to replace a purpose-built camera anyway. So let's talk about what it's actually good for. In practical terms, if I wanted a solution for monitoring my farm of 3D printers or my lab experiment, the usability deficiencies here are less important and it does live up to its name pretty well, offering high quality, especially for the cost. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has also committed to producing these things until at least 2026. So unlike some other sensor modules, I can count on future availability if I need more. So the reason it exists falls in line perfectly with the Raspberry Pi Foundation's overall goal of putting the power of computing and digital making into the hands of people all over the world. It might not be the best camera in an apples to apples comparison with a phone, for example, but it is a great camera for experiments, education, and just cool projects that can benefit from high quality, but don't need the best quality. In conclusion, then, it's not dumb to build your own camera, but if you have a somewhat recent phone, you're probably going to want to stick with that. Thanks to iFixit for sponsoring today's video. iFixit wants to make sure you have the right bit for the job. And with iFixit, you can take apart almost all your electronics, depending on which kit you pick. The Mako has its small 64 bits, the Mahi has larger bits and 48 of them, the Manta has all the bits at a whopping 112, and each kit includes one of iFixit's famous swivel knurled screwdrivers. iFixit kits are contained in magnetic enclosed case and all the tools are held together with laser cut foam for your convenience. Check it out at iFixit.com forward slash Linus. We're going to have that linked below. If you guys enjoyed this video, you might also enjoy our cheap home security camera video that we did a little while ago when I was super mad about subscription fees on the affordable consumer cameras. It was also Raspberry Pi based. Go have a look.