Will not having a lens affect photos? I'm only getting black or white photos

[pjdonovan84]

I have an HQ camera, no lens, and raspberry pi zero w 1.1.

All my photos have been either black or white, nothing in between. I've adjusted almost all settings, putting them at max and min and default. I can move around the text, so I can be reasonably certain the camera works.

The only thing I can figure is that the lack of a lens on the camera is causing issues.

alternatively, when i look at the logs, I see that it is using raspistill, but I'm using bullseye.

I've looked over the wiki and followed it as best as possible - can anyone help me troubleshoot?

logs:
Apr 28 22:08:36 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: > Saving DAY image 'image-20220428220 822.jpg'
Apr 28 22:08:36 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: Sleeping 15.0 seconds...
Apr 28 22:08:51 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: STARTING EXPOSURE at: 2022-04-28 22:08: 51 @ 500 us (0.500 ms)
Apr 28 22:08:52 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: > Capture command: raspistill --outpu t '/home/pi/allsky/tmp/image-20220428220851.jpg' --thumb none --burst -st --time out 1 --nopreview --mode 3 --exposure off --shutter 500 --analoggain 1 --exif IF D0.Artist=li_500_1 --awb off --awbgains 2.8,2 --vflip --saturation 1 --brightnes s 50 --quality 95
Apr 28 22:09:07 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: > Saving DAY image 'image-20220428220 851.jpg'
Apr 28 22:09:07 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: Sleeping 15.0 seconds...
Apr 28 22:09:22 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: STARTING EXPOSURE at: 2022-04-28 22:09: 22 @ 500 us (0.500 ms)
Apr 28 22:09:22 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: > Capture command: raspistill --outpu t '/home/pi/allsky/tmp/image-20220428220922.jpg' --thumb none --burst -st --time out 1 --nopreview --mode 3 --exposure off --shutter 500 --analoggain 1 --exif IF D0.Artist=li_500_1 --awb off --awbgains 2.8,2 --vflip --saturation 1 --brightnes s 50 --quality 95
Apr 28 22:09:37 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: > Saving DAY image 'image-20220428220 922.jpg'
Apr 28 22:09:37 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: Sleeping 15.0 seconds...
Apr 28 22:09:52 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: STARTING EXPOSURE at: 2022-04-28 22:09:52 @ 500 us (0.500 ms)
Apr 28 22:09:52 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: > Capture command: raspistill --output '/home/pi/allsky/tmp/image-20220428220952.jpg' --thumb none --burst -st --timeout 1 --nopreview --mode 3 --exposure off --shutter 500 --analoggain 1 --exif IFD0.Artist=li_500_1 --awb off --awbgains 2.8,2 --vflip --saturation 1 --brightness 50 --quality 95
Apr 28 22:10:06 Zerosky allsky.sh[4326]: > Saving DAY image 'image-20220428220952.jpg'

[EricClaeys]

@pjdonovan84 Lack of a lens shouldn't impact what you're seeing. If Allsky is trying to use raspistill on Bullseye that's because it can't find the camera - the same Issue in your other post. The current Allsky tries libcamera-still, and if it fails (which it does if the camera isn't configured), then it assume it should use raspistill. The next version of Allsky will try raspistill, and if it also fails, will report that it can't find the camera.

In your case, the fix is to configure the camera so libcamera sees it. I would start with raspi-config, and run libcamera-hello. Once you get that working, then Allsky will work as well. This is not an Allsky problem.

[pjdonovan84]

Just an update- I did need a lens. I thought I could just use the HQ camera to test things out while waiting for my lense, but it was just a purple screen at best. Once I added an arduino wide angle lens, suddenly it works! Now I'm trying to decide if I want to go with a non-GUI raspberry pi or update it to bullseye

[pjdonovan84]

So - for future help, my set up is Raspberry Pi Zero W ver 1.1, Arducam Ultra Wide Angle lens (120 degree, 3.2 mm focal), and RPI HQ camera. I ended up installing Bullseye lite, so there was no GUI. When I was troubleshooting and setting it up, I used Bullseye (and buster for a while) WITH gui, so i could VNC into it and it was easier to find and view photos, etc.

After I was self assured that adding the lens would get it to work, I assembled it and got the webpage up and running. But I noticed the photos were not as crisp as I would like (just blobs). After some research, specifically their video on their Amazon page, I figured out that the knob is there to keep the lens attached to the HQ camera, and you need to manually adjust the focus by turning the whole lens (use the knob). I found 3 or 4 counter clockwise turns got it to a reasonable focus and fine-tuned it from there. (go ahead and turn it as much clock wise as possible at first).

As was said elsewhere, it just started working once I got that going. I'm excited to see what I can do with this lens, I may end up getting a wider angled lense in time!

[pjdonovan84]

Here's a recent day time photo

[EricClaeys]

@pjdonovan84 Glad you got things working - now you can enjoy Allsky!
The daytime photo is either overexposed or the Brightness is too high, or both. With the RPiHQ camera you should be able to get nicely exposed daytime pictures. If you have Auto Exposure on, then try decreasing the Brightness.

[pjdonovan84]

I'll have to keep working with the settings - i don't think the night settings worked.

Nonetheless - i"m not sure I can go down in brightness? It says 50 is the minimum?

[EricClaeys]

@pjdonovan84 On Bullseye, Brightness ranges from -100 (pure black) to 100 (pure white), with 0 being "normal". I suggest leaving it at 0 until you get nice looking pictures, then playing with brightness to see if you can get better pictures.

[pjdonovan84]

Haha! Day time photos are getting MUCH better!

I'm still working on night time settings - get black as the background. But at least daytime photos are getting to the level I wanted it to be at!!

[EricClaeys]

@pjdonovan84 Great. Adjusting the white balance settings should help.
Can you post a nighttime shot?
While testing, I suggest turning on Show Time, Show Exposure, Show Gain, and Show Mean Brightness (an advanced option).