The Pi camera is here

Well it finally arrived. Just got it from my local supplier. Now what? 

The official site describes it very clearly. Firstly Raspbian must be prepared. I'll give a quick summary with the shell commands and some screens.

The following pair of commands must be issued in order to get the new camera option in the raspi-config menu:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get update

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get upgrade

The second one can be replaced with the more powerful:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

I actually typed all three in a row before realizing (after googling the difference and reading through the ubuntu forums mostly) that the last one is an extended variant of the update, and it might trigger installing new packages upon existing dependencies.

To be absolutely positive that nothing is missing I even updated the firmware according to a procedure from a book I'm reviewing at the moment (the book is Raspberry Pi for Secret Agents and its review comes in a few days). The commands are:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo wget http://goo.gl/1BOfJ -O /usr/bin/rpi-update
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/rpi-update
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get install git-core

Once it is set-up the update script is invoked by issuing the command:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo rpi-update

And after a short reboot the configuration menu have to be started:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo raspi-config

The first of the two new options near the bottom is about the camera.

The updated raspi-config with option for enabling the camera

It is dead simple - just enable it.

The "procedure" consists of mere confirmation

The configuration menu will ask for a reboot, but the shutdown is the actual option, so the camera can be safely mounted on the not-working Raspberry Pi.

There are a few shots from the moments between the unpacking and booting the Raspy with camera already mounted on its CSI (Camera Serial Interface) connector.

It comes folded this way. Usually folding the cable should be avoided.

Full length. The protective sticker have to be removed from the lens.

Appearance is a bit deceiving. The camera is tinier than I expected.

The blue plastic should face the RJ-45 connector, not the HDMI.

One drawback merely worth mentioning concerns the official cases sold through the Farnell website. These cases are not ready for the camera. They're actually not ready for any of the GPIO, DSI or CSI ports. Thankfully the niche is filled with plethora of different designs of capable functionality. For example, just today I stumbled upon this Kickstarter's project. The guys have made (will make because they still have three more days of fund-raising to go) not only the most compact case there is. They've been careful to the details and offer heat-sinks, a camera holder and a compact micro-SD card holder. Just the perfect fit!

And so the moment of truth. Booted. Connected on the ssh terminal. Made a quick test with the given raspistill and raspivid tools as the post suggests. Here are the results, respectively.

The dimensions of the scene and the capabilities of the optics have to be taken in consideration

Despite the bad directing of the test-probes, the image and video quality is very good, and  it seems things run well. So some experiments lie ahead.