Capturing still images in Raspberry Pi - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Capturing still images

📖 Scenario: You have a Raspberry Pi with a camera module attached. You want to take a clear photo and save it as a file on your Raspberry Pi.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple Python program that captures a still image using the Raspberry Pi camera and saves it as photo.jpg.

📋 What You'll Learn

Use the picamera library to control the camera

Create a camera object

Capture a still image and save it as photo.jpg

Print a message confirming the photo was taken

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Taking photos with a Raspberry Pi camera is useful for projects like security cameras, time-lapse photography, or nature monitoring.

💼 Career

Understanding how to control hardware like cameras programmatically is valuable for roles in embedded systems, robotics, and IoT development.

1

Import the picamera library and create a camera object

Write code to import the picamera library and create a camera object called camera using picamera.PiCamera().

Raspberry Pi

# Import picamera and create camera object
# Your code here

Hint

Use import picamera to bring in the camera library. Then create the camera object with camera = picamera.PiCamera().

2

Set the resolution for the camera

Add a line to set the camera resolution to (1024, 768) by assigning this tuple to camera.resolution.

Raspberry Pi

import picamera
camera = picamera.PiCamera()
# Set camera resolution to (1024, 768)
# Your code here

Hint

Use camera.resolution = (1024, 768) to set the picture size.

3

Capture a still image and save it as photo.jpg

Use the capture method of camera to take a photo and save it as photo.jpg.

Raspberry Pi

import picamera
camera = picamera.PiCamera()
camera.resolution = (1024, 768)
# Capture and save image as photo.jpg
# Your code here

Hint

Call camera.capture('photo.jpg') to take and save the photo.

4

Print confirmation message

Add a print statement to display the message "Photo saved as photo.jpg" after the photo is captured.

Raspberry Pi

import picamera
camera = picamera.PiCamera()
camera.resolution = (1024, 768)
camera.capture('photo.jpg')
# Print confirmation message
# Your code here

Hint

Use print("Photo saved as photo.jpg") to show the message.