75°(D) Autofocus Pi Camera V3

I picked up this camera to use with our Raspberry Pi projects in the classroom, and overall it’s been a solid addition. The image quality is really good—the pictures come out sharp, and the autofocus works well, which makes it great for things like robotics builds, experiments, or even simple vision projects. We’ve used it with different Raspberry Pi setups, and it integrates well once everything is configured. It’s a nice way to introduce students to real-world applications like monitoring systems, basic AI/vision ideas, or documenting their projects. Once it’s up and running, though, it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. For classroom use, robotics clubs, or STEM programs, it’s definitely a worthwhile tool—just not something I’d call plug-and-play for beginners.

I use this camera on a Pi 5 Bookworm 64 bit with the AI-Hat running a custom YOLO11 model for a security system. Runs at over 30Hz with a 1280x720 image size for my application 24-7. No issues, great picture. When used with a Pi 5 be sure to setup your /boot/firmware/config.txt file with the following 2 lines otherwise the camera will NOT be recognized: camera_auto_detect=0 # CHANGE existing line default was =1 dtoverlay=imx708,cam0. # NEW place after [all], cam0 or cam1 depending on the Pi 5 camera slot.

Warning: Not fully compatible with the Jetson Nano! The camera itself is perfectly fine but any picture captured on the camera using the Nano will appear pink/magenta and fully washed out and this is because the sensor is operation without a specific Image Signal Processor tuned to to the Nano platform. I am going to return and swap for an IMX477 sensor which has ISP support on the Jetson.

I’ve only had the camera for a few days, so here’s my initial impression: Image quality and autofocus are excellent. Price was pretty reasonable at -$32 dollars. One thing to keep in mind, take off the red plastic lens cover (including rubber standoffs)

UPDATE: The seller reached out to offer a refund. Thank you. I did not accept their offer because I did a LOT of research and testing and finally found a configuration that (barely) works on a Raspberry Pi 3B. Upgraded to 3 stars because it works but involved much more work than was expected because the product description page on the vendor website does not provide sufficient detail. Sure. It shows how to configure and get the camera _detected_, but from there you're pretty much on your own. ffmpeg, libcamera-vid, and ustreamer were used in my final solution. Frame rate is only 6 FPS at 1024x576, but that's good enough for what I need at the moment on my 3D printer. Auto-Focus is working now with some custom options on the command line, but it took a while to find that info. I do not recommend this for a Raspberry Pi 3B because it really does not have enough CPU at 1.2GHz to run this camera at a decent resolution and frame rate. It would probably work great for stills, but not for 12MP video! I haven't tested with a 4B (1.8GHz) or 5 (2.4GHz turbo) yet, but I expect they would perform significantly better. ORIGINAL REVIEW: While the camera sensor itself outputs RAW10, the output format from the IMX708 plugin is YUYV and is not easy to setup with common tools which use MJPEG. As such, it is not easily compatible with most tools. Even with LLM AI "help", it took me over two full days to get an almost working camera. I still can't get it to focus on my print bed. In my case, it's not worth the money because of the excessive time I've put into it so far. I do *not* recommend this camera for a beginner. It's a LOT of work to get setup.

I got it to work on a Pi Zero 2 W. The software directions were correct, I had to make the 2 changes in the firmware config file like they said and restart the pi. I also needed to enable I2C (which is not mentioned, and can be done via raspi-config). The camera auto focuses well, and has a fairly nice clear picture. The only reason I didn't give it a 5 star is because the directions for physically connecting the camera are not correct. It shows it using the large included cable (with the larger end on their camera) and the smaller end on the Pi Zero 2. You actually need to use the thinner cable that comes with it. The way the photo shows the cable being attached is also incorrect. The cable is backwards on one of the connections (I don't remember which), so if you get the "No Cameras Available" error, try flipping the cable at each end (one at a time), restart the pi and try again. Other than the directions for the cable not being correct, it was very easy to setup. I didn't have to install any drivers or software.

Works well for a headless Pi Zero once you get it set up. As of September 2025: Hardware: Others have said it, but make sure you install the ribbon cable correctly. Black side up, pins toward the board. Software: 1. Install Raspberry Pi OS Lite on your Pi Zero 2 2. Log in and upgrade everything: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade 3. Install the headless version of rpicam: sudo apt install rpicam-apps-lite 4. Update /boot/firmware/config.txt: camera_auto_detect=0 # Change from 1 [all] dtoverlay=imx708 # Add this 5. Reboot Test: 1. Run `rpicam-hello --list-cameras` and you should see this: 0 : imx708 [4608x2592 10-bit RGGB] (/base/soc/i2c0mux/i2c@1/imx708@1a) Modes: 'SRGGB10_CSI2P' : 1536x864 [120.13 fps - (768, 432)/3072x1728 crop] 2304x1296 [56.03 fps - (0, 0)/4608x2592 crop] 4608x2592 [14.35 fps - (0, 0)/4608x2592 crop] 2. Capture a test image like this: rpicam-jpeg -o test.jpg Good luck!

Excellent little camera! I needed something for a machine vision project and this camera performed the best of 5 different cameras that I tried (and was the cheapest by far). The only downside is that routing the ribbon is a much bigger pain that I expected and ribbon connectors are far less sturdy than a typical USB plug. If this is used in an environment where there's plenty of room for a ribbon and it won't be disturbed, then this is a great choice!

Amazing product, worth the price, highly compatible with pi ,amazing camera quality

Good product, does as expected. Comes with two ribbon wires for connection to various models of the Raspberry Pi. Wouldn't hurt if wires were a bit longer. Easy connection to Raspberry Pi software, resolution is good. Price is right, I recommend this product.

The item is a great addition to the raspberry pi. Definitely happy with the product, was delivered fast as well

Why did you choose this product over others?: Works well, just remember to remove the lens cover

Using with a Pi 4 running bookworm (12) and half the time libcamera-still fails with error: dmaHeap allocation failure for rpicam-apps0 ERROR: *** failed to allocate capture buffers for stream *** Have been through the trouble shooting guides, allocated more cma (512M) but makes no difference. The image quality when it manages to capture an image is very good and I’ve therefore given three stars. The issue with reliably capturing an image can be got around by using a script to keep trying until success, which suits my use case, but is not ideal