The Microsoft Lifecam HD-6000 autofocus is notoriously annoying. It refocuses unnecessarily sometimes every few seconds making the camera nearly unusable. Here's the workaround on Raspbian (Debian) for the Raspberry Pi.
The best workaround is to disable autofocus. You'd think this would just make the camera blurry all the time, but it doesn't. The camera's depth of field keeps the image in focus over a wide range of distances without autofocus. I've tested ranges from 18" to infinity and everything is sharp and clear.
Since this camera is UVC-compliant (USB Video Class), on Raspbian disabling autofocus is done with a command that interacts with the UVC driver, uvcdynctrl.
My version of Wheezy didn't have this tool installed so I issued:
sudo apt-get install uvcdynctrl
With the software installed, I listed the configurable items on the camera:
$ uvcdynctrl -c
Listing available controls for device video0:
Brightness
Contrast
Saturation
White Balance Temperature, Auto
Power Line Frequency
White Balance Temperature
Sharpness
Backlight Compensation
Exposure, Auto
Exposure (Absolute)
Pan (Absolute)
Tilt (Absolute)
Focus (absolute)
Focus, Auto
Zoom, Absolute
Then, I disabled autofocus.
$ uvcdynctrl --set='Focus, Auto' 0
And that's it, no more annoying autofocus. I'll be able to use this tiny, attractive little webcam for my RPi Telepresence robot.
Is this really a fix when all you are doing is disabling autofocus? Have Jim, I have a problem with my car, the brake lights flicker on and off. No problem Bob, just disconnect them.
ReplyDeleteAfter disabling autofocus, the image is clear and focused for a wide range of distances. So, it becomes usable versus going blurry every ten seconds making it unusable. I don't care if we call it a fix, hack or a rutabaga. :) The point is that when you disable autofocus the camera works nicely.
DeleteDoes this camera work powered by the Pi only, or do you need USB hub?
ReplyDeleteNo powered hub needed, the Pi can power it fine (I have the original Pi with the fuses and limited current)
DeleteThis website lists various hardware and their compatibility and whether they need a powered hub or not.
http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals
i also had to turn on focus absolute to 1. turning focus auto to 0 didn't fix the focus.
ReplyDeleteI have to use FOCUS AUTO OFF with a Microsoft LifeCam HD-6000 ...Good job! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteAccessing and changing camera parameters (if your camera supports this), from the command line in Linux.
ReplyDeleteNote- I have written this for disabling the autofocus and setting a desired focus value for Microsoft Lifecam HD-6000 webcam, in Ubuntu 12.10
Step1:
First list all the devices, in order to find your device.
command:
uvcdynctrl -l
Result you would see:
Listing available devices:
video2 Microsoft® LifeCam HD-6000 for
video1 Laptop_Integrated_Webcam_2HDM
video0 Microsoft® LifeCam HD-6000 for
I have connected 2 HD-6000 cams and hence I see 2 devices. In order to access/change a device's settings, you must use the following command:
uvcdynctrl -d deviceName(in this case- video0 or video1 or video2)
Step2:
List all the controls available for the particular device
Command is as follows:
uvcdynctrl -d video0 -c
Result you would see is as follows: (Don't worry more than what is below comes as result.. just hunt for the below mentioned part of the output)
Listing available controls for device video0:
Brightness
Contrast
Saturation
White Balance Temperature, Auto
Power Line Frequency
White Balance Temperature
Sharpness
Backlight Compensation
Exposure (Absolute)
Pan (Absolute)
Tilt (Absolute)
Focus (absolute)
Focus, Auto
Zoom, Absolute
Step3:
Next, you can get the current value of a control by typing the following command:
uvcdynctrl -d video0 --get='Focus, Auto'
you will find the value at the end of the output as 1, as the auto focus will have been enabled by default.
Step4:
Now you need to first set the auto focus to 0 and then only, can you set the manual (absolute) focus to whatever value you desire.
command:
uvcdynctrl -d video0 --set='Focus, Auto' 0
Take care about the spacing in the command..
To cross verify whether the autofocus has been disabled, type the command in step3. Now you should get 0 as the value in your output
Step5:
Now that you have disabled autofocus, let us set a value- say 10 for the manual focus.
command:
uvcdynctrl -d video0 --set='Focus (absolute)' 10
To cross verify the same, type:
uvcdynctrl -d video --get='Focus (absolute)'
In the end of the output, you should see 10 as the control value for manual (absolute) focus..
Hope this helps :)
Cheers!
Sup..
Might be an older post but I've got an older camera. Thanks for the post. Sure helped me!
ReplyDeleteMight be an older post but I've got an older camera. Thanks for the post. Sure helped me!
ReplyDeleteAwesome, glad to hear it!
DeleteSorry to necro this post, but I was wondering how I could get these scripts to run at boot? Everytime I need to re-boot my pi I loose the settings.
ReplyDeleteThanks for asking! I created scripts in /etc/init.d for each service and then updated.d to set up the links for various run levels. More details here: https://debian-administration.org/article/28/Making_scripts_run_at_boot_time_with_Debian
Delete