<h1>The Pi camera modes</h1>

The Pi camera supports a stills capture mode, which offers the full Field of View (FOV) of the sensor (2592�1944), and a HD 1080p video mode (1920x1080p). Stills is 4:3, HD video 16:9 (wide screen) is reduced FOV ('cropped' from the center of the camera pixel array). Additonal modes were added in March 2014 = <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/new-camera-mode-released/">here is the full list of the supported modes</a> :-

<code>
2592�1944 1-15fps, video or stills mode, Full sensor full FOV, default stills capture
1920�1080 1-30fps, video mode, 1080p30 cropped
1296�972 1-42fps, video mode, 4:3 aspect binned (2x2) full FOV. Used for stills preview in raspistill.
1296�730 1-49fps, video mode, 16:9 aspect , binned (2x2), full FOV (width) cropped height, used for 720p
640�480 42.1-60fps, video mode, up to VGAp60 2x2 binned with pixel skipping
640�480 60.1-90fps, video mode, up to VGAp90 2x2 binned with pixel skipping
</code>

The 'binning' modes combine 4 adjcent pixels (a 2x2 array) thus improving low light performance (as well as reducing noise). To get 90fps at VGA, half the binned pixel sets are 'skipped' during read-out (so 'almost full' FOV, using an areas of 2560x1920 out of 2592x1944).The Broadcom GPU MJPEG codec doesn�t cope above about 720P40 (it will start dropping frames, and above 45fps it just locks solid). Only Broadcom's H264 driver will support up to 720P49 and VGA@90fps.