Originally, I wasn’t sure if the RPI3 used a different [camera module] [setup]. The documentation hasn’t been updated to include [RPI3 for the picamera]. It turns out I had a bad camera ribbon, and with a different camera it works just fine on the RPI3.

To setup a Raspberry PI security camera.

I flash the SD with the latest [NOOBS] after formatting the SD card with the [SDCard Formatter].

Boot into the desktop and put the Raspberry PI on the wifi network.

Enable the [camera interface] and reboot.

Sudo edit the /boot/config.txt file. Disable the camera LED by adding the entry:

disable_camera_led=1

Install the [poster] module by running the command-line:

sudo pip install poster

Create the file: ~/superscript

cd ~/Documents/PythonScripts/Camera/
python capture_image.py

Add execute permissions to superscript.

chmod +x ~/superscript

Create a folder for the Camera Python scripts.

mkdir ~/Documents/PythonScripts
mkdir ~/Documents/PythonScripts/Camera/

Create the ~/Documents/PythonScripts/Camera/capture_image.py script. Rotate the camera as necessary.

#get access to the camera
from picamera import PiCamera

#import so we can invoke another script
import subprocess

#get access to the clock
import datetime

# get access to sunrise and sunset
from astral import Location

#sleep so we can wait on the camera
from time import sleep

from fractions import Fraction

# create a camera object
camera = PiCamera()

#set the image resolution
camera.resolution = (640, 480)

#rotate the camera if upside-down
camera.rotation = 180

#flip the camera on the horizontal
camera.hflip = True

i = 0;

#record defaults
framerate = camera.framerate
shutter_speed = camera.shutter_speed
exposure_mode = camera.exposure_mode
iso = camera.iso

while True:

  # Get sunrise and sunset for Monroe, WA
  l = Location()
  l.latitude = 47.887059
  l.longitude = -121.8792998
  l.timezone = 'US/Pacific'

  sunrise = l.sun()['dawn']
  sunriseHour = int(sunrise.strftime('%H'))
  sunriseMinute = int(sunrise.strftime('%M'))
  sunset = l.sun()['sunset']
  sunsetHour = int(sunset.strftime('%H'))
  sunsetMinute = int(sunset.strftime('%M'))

  hours = int(datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%H'))
  minutes = int(datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%M'))
  seconds = int(datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%S'))

  if (hours >= sunriseHour and hours <= sunsetHour):
    #print 'work in the light'
    camera.framerate = framerate
    camera.shutter_speed = shutter_speed
    camera.exposure_mode = exposure_mode
    camera.iso = iso
  else:
    #print 'work in the dark'
    camera.framerate = Fraction(1,6)
    camera.shutter_speed = 6000000
    camera.exposure_mode = 'off'
    camera.iso = 800

  #show preview with some transparency
  #camera.start_preview(alpha=200)

  #wait two seconds for camera lighting
  #sleep(2)

  filename = 'image'+str(i)+'.jpg'

  #save image locally
  camera.capture(filename)

  #invoke the script to upload the image
  subprocess.call('python save_image.py '+filename, shell=True)

  #stop the preview
  #camera.stop_preview()

  sleep(3)

  i = (i + 1) % 12

Create the save_image.py script. Alter the domain and path to ~/Documents/PythonScripts/Camera/save_image.py.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import urllib, urllib2, os, os.path, sys
from poster.encode import multipart_encode
from poster.streaminghttp import register_openers

command = os.popen('ifconfig | grep -A1 wlan0')
client_ip = command.read()
#print client_ip

register_openers()

if (len(sys.argv) > 1):
  filename = sys.argv[1];
else:
  filename = 'image.jpg';

query = { 'filename' : filename, 'client_ip' : client_ip }
url = "http://domain/path/save_image.php?"+urllib.urlencode(query)

print 'Saved: '+filename;
if (os.path.isfile(filename)) :
  values = {'image':open(filename)}
  data, headers = multipart_encode(values)
  headers['User-Agent'] = 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT)'
  headers['filename'] = filename
  req = urllib2.Request(url, data, headers)
  req.unverifiable = True
  content = urllib2.urlopen(req).read()
  #print (content)
else:
  print 'No image file found to upload\r\n';

On your PHP server somewhere, make a new folder and create the page save_image.php.

<?php

$filename = "image.jpg";
if ($_GET['filename'] != null) {
   $filename = $_GET['filename'];
}

if ($_GET['client_ip'] != null) {
   $clientip = $_GET['client_ip'];
   file_put_contents('client_ip.txt', $clientip);
}

$image = $_FILES["image"];

if ($image == null) {
   echo "Missing image to save as: ";
   echo $filename;
} else {
   echo "Saved image!";
   $tmp_name = $_FILES["image"]["tmp_name"];
   move_uploaded_file($tmp_name, $filename);
}

?>

On your PHP server somewhere, save the page images.php near your server image paths.

<html>
<?php
function displayFirstImage($path) {
   $files = glob($path);
   usort($files, function($a, $b) {
      return filemtime($a) < filemtime($b);
   });
   foreach($files as $file){
      printf('<img src="%1$s"/>', $file);
      break;
   }
}
displayFirstImage('path/to/camera1/*.jpg');
displayFirstImage('path/to/camera2/*.jpg');
displayFirstImage('path/to/camera3/*.jpg');
displayFirstImage('path/to/camera4/*.jpg');
?>
<script>
setTimeout("window.location.reload()", 30000);
</script>
</html>

Edit ~/.bashrc and add the following to the end of the file.

~/superscript &

Reboot the Raspberry PI and the security camera is ready to go!

Pete Wood from [DesignSpark] gives an out of the box overview of the Raspberry PI 3. DesignSpark also has a resource page for a ton of [Raspberry PI Blogs].

Brian Flakes posted an example script in the RPI forums for how to do [lightweight python motion detection] which is useful when taking pictures with the RPI camera module.

Converted the example to work with PiCamera.

#get access to the camera
from picamera import PiCamera

import picamera.array #want to do it in memory

from PIL import Image
import requests

#import so we can invoke another script
import subprocess

#sleep so we can wait on the camera
from time import sleep

token = 'YOUR_SECURITY_TOKEN'
selector = 'group_id:SEE_THE_SELECTOR_DOCS'
threshold = 40
sensitivity = 20
firstRun = True
lastPixels = []
detected = False
showPreview = False
hidePreview = False
waitRedlight = 600
i = 0
headers = {
    "Authorization": "Bearer %s" % token,
}

# create a camera object
camera = PiCamera()

#set the image resolution
camera.resolution = (640, 480)

#rotate the camera if upside-down
#camera.rotation = 180

def Greenlight():
  payload = {
    "power": "off",
    "color": "green saturation:0.9",
    "brightness": 1.0,
    "duration": 1
  }
  try:
    response = requests.put('https://api.lifx.com/v1/lights/'+selector+'/state', data=payload, headers=headers)
  except:
    pass

def Redlight():
  payload = {
    "power": "on",
    "color": "white",
    "brightness": 1.0,
    "duration": 1
  }
  try:
    response = requests.put('https://api.lifx.com/v1/lights/'+selector+'/state', data=payload, headers=headers)
  except:
    pass

Greenlight();

while True:

  if (showPreview):
    showPreview = False
    #show preview with some transparency
    camera.start_preview(alpha=200)
    hidePreview = True

  filename = 'image'+str(i)+'.jpg'

  #save image locally
  camera.capture(filename)

  image = Image.open(filename)
  pixels = image.load()

  width, height = image.size
  #print ('width='+str(width)+' height='+str(height)+"\n");

  if (firstRun):
    firstRun = False
    lastPixels = pixels

  # Count changed pixels
  changedPixels = 0
  for x in range(width):
    for y in range(height):
      # Just check green channel as it's the highest quality channel
      pixdiff = abs(pixels[x,y][1] - lastPixels[x,y][1])
      if pixdiff > threshold:
        changedPixels += 1

  print ('changedPixels='+str(changedPixels))
  lastPixels = pixels

  if (changedPixels < 100):
    if (detected):
      detected = False
      Greenlight();
      firstRun = True
  else:
    if (detected == False):
      detected = True
      Redlight();
      sleep(waitRedlight)
      firstRun = True
      showPreview = True

  if (hidePreview):
    hidePreview = False
    #stop the preview
    camera.stop_preview()
    firstRun = True

  sleep(1)

  i = (i + 1) % 12
  

The Pi camera module has a red LED that can show glare or a red dot in the images captured with the camera. RPI Spy posted an article on [How To Disable The Red LED On The Pi Camera Module].

Add the following to the end of the file.

/boot/config.txt

disable_camera_led=1