Using the Raspberry Pi Camera to see through the mirror

johnnyboy

There are quite a lot of webcams out there with built in microphones… So best Google or have a look at styles/shapes/sizes on Amazon or Fleabay to get an idea of what suits. Im sure they are all more-or-less same megapixels? apart for the higher end ones that also record in HD, and has twin microphones… also ones with Facial recognition like the M$ Hello Face recognition which I think is windows 10 only??? so all depends on your budget, and what you want from it, also the size and casing incase you can/want to strip it down for a better fit?

lolobyte

Hi @Synthic,

i use since 2 weeks the mirror glass ordered at @Goldjunge_Chriz ad the result is fantastic. With my mirror before the video was very darken. i send you asap a picture of my videoframe.

Synthic

@slametps Yeah, I know the camera works well normally. So your camera works by seeing through the mirror from the other side? Did you have to tweak any camera settings or did it just work?

lolobyte

@Synthic yes behind the mirror glass without any tweaks.

broberg

Do consider that there is difference in properties between the types of two way mirrors out there,
one type could work well with a camera lens while another type doesn’t work at all.

for an example many two way coatings are made to filter out IR light.

Synthic

@broberg That is a valid point. How would one know what kind of two-way mirror I posess? Haven’t been able to find any “comprehensive overview” of two-way mirrors

dpenney

@Synthic Infrared is blocked by cameras anyway so that wouldn’t make a difference. The only thing the camera cares about is visible light so if you are able to see through the mirror you are using then there is no reason that the camera shouldn’t be able to do the same thing regardless of what material the mirror is made from.

I too have the basic PiCam located behind the glass and it works perfectly. Does your cam work without the glass in place?

Synthic

@dpenney That’s what bugs me:

The PiCamera works great normally
I can see through the mirror
My Nexus 5 camera can see through the mirror
The PiCamera can not. (it CAN, but it is waaaay too dark)

dpenney

@Synthic That is frustrating…

I think the facial recognition module uses python-picamera to talk to the camera, are you able to tweak the configs somewhere in order to up the brightness?
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/camera/python/README.md

dpenney

This is where the camera is setup - try adding
camera.brightness = 90

https://github.com/paviro/MMM-Facial-Recognition/blob/master/facerecognition/picam.py

Worth a shot :)