Well a few months back I started building myself a Macro Workstation to help me with soldering and other detailed tasks that need magnification but also to provide me with a means of recording it easily. I had originally envisioned to use a 35MM camera lens to maximise the amount of light entering the body, but found that unless I use the equivalent of a fish eye lens the crop factor associated with the Raspberry Pi Camera image sensor was on the magnitude of approx 5.7. My lens options as a result ended up being quite limited.
So I started researching the Image sensor used on the Raspberry Pi Camera, and went to research what lenses I could use that would allow me to have the macro effect needed for the work station but on the same token not have the crazy crop factor that would be the case if using a 35mm lens. My research ended up pointing me in the direction of CS mount lenses, And as my day job is in security, I found out a range of security cameras, use CS mount, and are designed for a 1/3" image sensor, so when used with the Raspberry Pi 1/4" image sensor the crop factor would be negligible.
So I set to work on Version 1 of my station, I was making massive design changes all along the way but ultimately the design was not entirely sound, as parts broke easily. One of the pictures attached is the remnants of the V1 station I've yet to finish stripping the parts I am going to be using off of it. But I'll be re using the metal frame etc., I still have some parts to fabricate as I am making a light for the work area from high brightness LED's that can be controlled by the RPi's GPIO, I'm using a RPi 3B+ for the project as I have quite a few of them lying around.
The lens that I have used for this is a Tamron 12VG412ASIR CCTV lens, It has an Aspherical lens, and Auto Iris. The auto iris on the lens has proven to be a challenge, as it has four pins, two are ground the other two, operate the iris motor, One pair provides power to the iris motor (and fully open it) whilst the other pair take a PWM signal to control how open the iris is. Both control pins on the auto iris need a voltage from 0 to 3v (5v Tolerant) to open and control the iris, and draws approximately 5 to 10mA so safe to directly connect to the RPi GPIO.
So as it stands I am halfway through building Version 2 of my Macro Pi Station, which is much stronger in design and more integrated, and this is learning from my design mistakes I made on Version 1.
But where I am going to run into a Roadblock, is I'm going to need to learn Python, so I can have an application so I can use my work station, and control the camera, light and recording. But I'm a total beginner when it comes to writing Python and the last time I did code, was 18 years ago, and that was coding in C++, and not even object orientated programming. So I'm open to anyone who is willing to help point me in the right direction so I can learn to code the Python code for my application. Also does python have a library for doing image processing so I can use it to help with controlling the camera's iris.
Regards
Celcius1
P.S. Also find attached a render of the Version 2 build
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