Nov 10, 2020
How to Set up a Raspberry Pi Camera
The Raspberry Pi Camera Modules by the Raspberry Pi Foundation is an HD camera that captures high-resolution images. It’s pretty much the same as your phone’s camera, and you can use it to take images or film videos.
Set Up
- Locate the Port for the Camera Module
- Pull up gently on the edges of the plastic clip on the port
- Insert the ribbon cable for the Camera Module; make sure the cable is round the correct way
- Push the plastic camera clip into place
Checkout this video for a great overview
Enable Camera
Next, make sure that the camera is enabled under Raspberry Pi Configuration.
Camera Applications
There are four apps available for the Raspberry Pi camera application: raspistill, raspivid, raspiyuv, and raspividyuv. Raspistill and raspiyuv are somewhat similar and are intended to capture images. Raspivid and raspvidyuv are intended for video capture.
The below command utilizes rapistill to save the image to desktop
raspistill -o Desktop/image.jpgThe below is a python script that does the same
from picamera import PiCamera
camera = PiCamera()
camera.start_preview(alpha=192)
camera.capture("/home/pi/Desktop/pic.jpg")
camera.stop_preview()from picamera import PiCamera
camera = PiCamera()
camera.start_preview(alpha=192)
camera.capture("/home/pi/Desktop/pic.jpg")
camera.stop_preview()
See here for further documentation and here for a great walkthrough.
