Listen closely to the soothing sound of the PiCowbell's ring, indicating that the Adafruit PiCowbell OV5640 Camera Breakout with a 120-Degree Low-Distortion Lens is now available.

Capture high-quality images with the OV5640 camera, equipped with a 5 Megapixel sensor and 120-degree low-distortion wide angle lens. This breakout board also includes all the necessary circuitry for effortless picture-taking on your Pico or Pico W. Choose to save as raw RGB for image analysis or use the built-in JPEG encoding to store images on an SD card or upload them to adafruit.io.

The RP2040 chip boasts a high-speed PIO interface peripheral and ample memory to connect with 'DVP' (8-bit parallel digital) cameras. These camera sensors feature 8 image data pins, as well as Pixel Clock, H Sync, and V Sync signals, an I2C configuration interface, and a Reset and Power Down pin. This results in a significant use of GPIO, but with 6 GPIO pins remaining after incorporating an SD card and shutter button.

Camera PiCowbell Features:

• Interface for OV5640 Camera module
  VSync: GPIO 0
  Power Down: GPIO 1
  HSync: GPIO 2
  Pixel Clock: GPIO 3
  SDA/SCL: GPIO 4 and GPIO 5
  8-bit Digital: GPIO6 through GPIO 13
  Reset: GPIO 14
• Micro SD Card:
  SPI on GPIO 16, GPIO 18 and GPIO 19
  Chip select on GPIO 17
  Optional SD Detect on GPIO 15
• Shutter button on GPIO 22
• Reset button
• 16 MHz 'XClock' generated by onboard oscillator
• Stemma QT port for I2C on GPIO 4 / 5

This module does not have auto-focus capability, it is a fixed 'infinite' focus module.

Each order comes with an assembled PCB, camera sensor, and two pieces of 20-pin pin header. You will need to solder in the header yourself, but it's a quick task.

Since this board has the camera pointing 'up', it's best to use our . Or you can 'stack' the camera 'bell on top, best when you don't need easy access to the BOOT loading button.

Or, for a compact package, you can...

1.  if you want to be able to plug into a breadboard or other accessory with sockets. Solder these onto the Pico so that the camera is on top.
2. if you want to plug directly in and have a nice solid connection that doesn't have any poking-out-bits. Ditto, solder these into the Pico and plug the camera on top.