Good news comes from the Raspberry Pi blog: one of the most used accessories in the world, the camera, is completely renewed now offering a sony sensor much better than that of the Omnivision 5-megapixel camera (OmniVision OV5647 sensor) .
It is a sensor for both visible light (on the left, in the image above) and infrared cameras (on the right), based on the Sony IMX219, 8 megapixels, and will be sold for the same price as the previous one: 25 dollars. They have already started producing it, and soon we will have it available through their partners RS Components and element14.
The 5-megabyte sensor they had until now began shipping in 2013, and has been used in projects of all kinds, from telescopes to cameras to capture landscapes. Shortly after they launched the infrared version Pi NoIR, also the protagonist of large projects, but the OmniVision OV5647 sensor stopped being manufactured in 2014 and the stock is already running out, which is why conversations with Sony began.
They comment on the blog, where we can also see imaging tests of these sensors, that it is more than just a resolution update:
It is a leap forward in image quality, color fidelity, and low-light performance.
The hardware of the Raspberry Pi is in charge of processing the information captured by these sensors, and is prepared to make color, light and contrast corrections automatically.
