hi guys,

lets make a raspberry pi timelapse camera. the raspberry pi can be programmed to click pictures at regular intervals. theses pictures can be used to create a time-lapse video.

Let us begin

Parts you will need:

Raspberry pi

Raspberry pi camera

Camera stand

If you are using the raspberry pi camera for the first time and need some help, here is a tutorial on how to install the camera module. The SimpleCV installation is optional though.

The Camera Stand



The time-lapse camera will work best if the camera is steady when clicking pictures, hence a stand is necessary .

There are stands and mounts available for the raspberry camera for a few bucks.

You can also be a bit creative and make one from old parts. For e.g.I have used my old Nokia phone stand to make a stand for the camera. Just a Polystyrene foam cube and a few pins did the trick.

The Final part

Connect the camera to the raspberry pi and mount it to the stand

Boot up the pi

Make a folder on the desktop for the camera pics. Name it as timelapse

Here is the the program. copy and paste it in a new python window and save it as timelapse.py

from picamera import PiCamera from time import sleep camera = PiCamera() #starts the camera max_pics=60 #adjust the value for max no of pics delay = 60 #seconds #adjust this value too #camera.start_preview() #uncomment to start camera preview i=0 while i<(max_pics): camera.capture('/home/pi/Desktop/timelapse/'+str(i)+'.jpg')#capture photo sleep(delay) #delay in between pics i+=1 #increment i by one unit camera.close() #close camera after its done

Adjust the ‘ max_pics ‘ value to limit the amount of pics to be clicked.

‘ value to limit the amount of pics to be clicked. You’ll need to do one more thing. that is adjust the time in between clicking pics.

to do that change the value of ‘ delay’ in the program

to do that change the value of ‘ in the program Make sure the camera is positioned in the correct direction before clicking pics. you can view the camera feed by uncommenting the ‘ #camera.start_preview()’.

Run the program. it will click pics continuously untill the max_pics limit is raeched

The pics will be saved in time-lapse folder you have created.

After the program runs you’ll end up with a lot of camera pics in the timelapse folder.

To make a time-lapse video from these pics you will have to use a software like the timelapsetool for windows. Just download and install the software from the website. and import the pics to the software to create videos.

That’s it for this post. Like, share, comment and follow for more such projects.