WSAL11297 – RPi Camera (D)/en

Documentation notice: This technical documentation was independently rewritten from an archived supplier source. Check technical details and commands against the product version and manufacturer documentation before use.

Summary

Concise technical overview for using the RPi Camera (D) with Raspberry Pi boards, including connection, software configuration and capture commands.

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WSAL11297 – RPi Camera (D)

Technical overview

The camera connects via the CSI port; on Pi 5 a second CSI port is available.
For non-official cameras, set camera_auto_detect=0 in /boot/config.txt (or /boot/firmware/config.txt on Bookworm).
Specific sensors require a dtoverlay entry, e.g. dtoverlay=imx219 or dtoverlay=ov5647.
Two cameras can be connected simultaneously by appending cam0 and cam1 to their respective entries.
rpicam-hello starts a preview for about five seconds and can be closed with Alt+F4 or Ctrl+C.
rpicam-jpeg captures a JPEG image; options like -t, --width and --height control duration and resolution.
Tuning files adjust image quality per sensor variant, e.g. imx219_noir.json.
Picamera2 also supports USB cameras via MJPEG/YUYV but requires the Qt preview and OpenCV for YUYV conversion.

Commands and examples – verify before use:

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo nano /boot/config.txt
sudo nano /boot/firmware/config.txt
dtoverlay=imx219
dtoverlay=ov5647,cam1
sudo libcamera-hello -t 0
sudo libcamera-hello -t 0 --camera 1
rpicam-hello
rpicam-jpeg -o test.jpg -t 2000 --width 640 --height 480

Notes and version constraints

Some steps depend on the exact system version (Bookworm vs. Bullseye); verify the OS version before running commands.
Connecting IMX290 to Pi 5 requires an additional JSON file from an external source; this needs network access and manual confirmation.
Not all features (e.g. video recording with USB cameras) are available; hot-plugging is not supported.
Please verify board/sensor compatibility before deployment; the source does not list every supported combination.

Source and revision record

RPi Camera (D) - Waveshare Wiki
Source revision: 89226
Captured: 2026-08-30T02:53:00+00:00
SHA-256: cab49af67e7d5ff5a07c433d38af9315c3da7f6f3f23acfffe0ce6c325e06d93