How to make your Raspberry Pi Zero W camera see an ultra-wide view

While I was organising cabinet, I found a pack of Camera Lens Kit for mobile phones.

Since I am using my Raspberry Pi Zero W as a surveillance camera, I figured that it would be useful if I can use the Fisheye lens in the pack to make my camera see a wider view.

With this in mind, I created this post for showing how we can make a Raspberry Pi Zero W camera see an ultra-wide view.

Bill of materials for the Raspberry Pi Zero W camera

In case you need it, you can use the following hardware to build your Raspberry Pi Zero W camera with ultra-wide view:


Securing the magnetic adapter ring to the Raspberry Pi Zero W official camera lid

Firstly, remove the 3M protecting paper which at the rear of the magnetic adapter ring and stick it to the Raspberry Pi Zero W Official camera case lid.

To further secure the ring to the camera case lid, I recommend using a piece of masking tape over the ring. Once you had done so, poke through the masking tape and camera hole of the case.

As a result of doing that, your camera case will look like this:

Masking tape over magnetic adapter ring and Raspberry Pi Zero W official case camera lid

How your Raspberry Pi Zero W camera will look like with Fisheye lens

After making sure with that the magnetic adapter ring is securely attached, position the Fisheye lens onto the camera lid.

Once you had done so, your Raspberry Pi Zero W CCTV camera will look like this:

Fisheye lens on Raspberry Pi Zero W Official case camera lid

Difference between the Raspberry Pi camera without and with the Fisheye lens

Without the Fisheye lens, a sample image footage of the Raspberry Pi camera look like this:

motionEye view of Raspberry Pi Zero W camera without Fisheye lens

After attaching the Fisheye lens, a sample image footage of the Raspberry Pi camera look like this:

motionEye view of Raspberry Pi Zero W camera with Fisheye lens

Although there is a dark patch surrounding the image footage, the camera will be able to capture a much wider view.

Building a Raspberry Pi Zero W CCTV camera

Previously, I had written two posts on how to make a Raspberry Pi Zero W CCTV camera:

  1. Setup a CCTV camera with Raspberry Pi Zero W and motionEyeOS image for home surveillance
  2. Setup a Raspberry Pi Zero W CCTV camera with motionEye and Raspbian Stretch Lite

The first post shows how to use a motionEyeOS image to setup a Raspberry Pi Zero W CCTV camera. This is the easier way to setup a Raspberry Pi Zero W CCTV camera.

After I changed my router, I wrote the second post on how to setup a Raspberry Pi Zero W CCTV camera with a Raspbian Stretch Lite image.

In case you need a reference on how to build a Raspberry Pi Zero W CCTV camera, you can follow either the first post or the second post.

How to make your Raspberry Pi Zero W camera see an ultra-wide view

About Clivant

Clivant a.k.a Chai Heng enjoys composing software and building systems to serve people. He owns techcoil.com and hopes that whatever he had written and built so far had benefited people. All views expressed belongs to him and are not representative of the company that he works/worked for.