How to use Raspberry Pi Cameras with the New 'Bullseye' OS Update - LibCamera

This guide will get you taking pictures and videos ASAP with the New 'Bullseye' Raspberry Pi OS release. This explains all the new camera terminal commands and settings so you can get right back to snapping and filming with this new Debian Version 11 release.

Related Information

If you try to use the old commands you will be met with the error code | bash: raspistill: command not found | or | bash: raspivid: command not found |.

With the newest update to Raspberry Pi OS (Debian Version 11 - nicknamed ‘Bullseye’) there have been some changes to the terminal commands which control attached cameras. This is one of the biggest changes with the new update. This has occurred as the old, less open-source camera package has been replaced with the new more open-source Libcamera package. As a user, this means the | raspistill | and | raspicam | camera commands have been replaced with different commands under the new Libcamera suite. All camera control commands have basically had their first prefix replaced with | libcamera-still | and | libcamera-vid | with some changes to additional run on settings as well. So, this guide is going to solely focus on these new commands available to you with this new Release. I will demonstrate how to take pictures and videos, change the parameters, create a timelaspe and how to encode/capture raw data/capture colour spaces using this new package. The camera commands explained on this page will work with any Camera Module for any Raspberry Pi handheld computer with the newest Raspberry Pi OS release [Update - There has been some issues with the new Pi Zero 2 and this new OS, if you run into any issues revert to previous 'Buster' OS version, download link above]. This new camera package has also provided a whole bunch of streaming capabilities allowing you to simply stream video over your internet connection via VLC. Furthermore, this more open source package will provide improvements to multiprocessing to better handle large arrays in shared memory which should speed up processing for computer vision applications.

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0:00 Intro
0:12 LibCamera Package What and Why
0:57 The Set Up
1:15 Camera Test Command
1:35 Permanent Preview Command
2:18 Photo Command
3:13 Methods to See All Options
3:45 Photo with Custom Settings
4:42 Encoding, Colour Space and Raw (More Examples in Article)
5:01 Time-laspe Command
6:07 Video Command
7:00 Video with Custom Settings
7:10 Where to Now
7:30 Outro

[kadensuderman]

Looked for ages on how to close the camera window after opening it via SSH and your vid was literally the only place I could find explaining to just use Ctrl + C. Thank you!

[armstrodsoftsuit]

Nice Catch. I was scratching my head on the versions instructions. Keep doing that Voo Doo. .

[oguzcan]

been struggling. for WEEKS TO OBTAIN A BLOODY IMAGE FROM THIS CAMERA. ALL THOSE VIDEOS AND FORUMS....

I typed "libcamera-still" and finally see some action on the d4mn screen. Thank you for fixing my weeks-old issue in 40 seconds man.

[OnnieKoski]

Thank you so much! Now to figure out how to make a simple point and shoot camera 😂

[osmankhalid]

How to stream the video with libcamera on http? any guidelines please?

[PiDsPagePrototypes]

Any news on if the HDMI-to-CSI boards are supported?
I run Dicaffeine on a Pi4B as NDI sources, and on Bullseye there's an error message displayed when the Pi boots to the GUI, noting that the HDMI input board is not supported :(

[alaaosama]

Does chrome in latest bullesye versions works??

[sebastiancardona]

Help! I cannot use my IMX219 camera with Octopi. Tried everything.

[prabingautam]

Can you do a video on how to code with this new package instead of running it from the terminal? like what line of code do I use to take a picture now?

[fedouakhend]

my camera isn't detected even though it is connected to my raspberry pi, when I ran "sudo raspi-config" I couldn't find the enable camera, even in interface options, what shall I do please??? I am using a raspberry pi 3 and a 270 logitech camera

[aitanmammadova]

Hi. When I try to enable camera it wants to reboot it. But after vnc viewer turns into a small black screen. And written “Cannot currently show desktop”. What can I do?
And also I wanted to enable camera from the operating system. And I can’t see Camera option in Interfaces. I think it is related to last version. Can u help me please? What can I do? When it turns small black screen it is too difficult to fix it.

[andyroo_]

My camera flickers from a black screen back to the video stream, is there any way to fix this?

[capsbr]

Anyway to get simple capture snippet code in c++? For example with opencv like the good old days? It's an absolute nightmare to get this working with pi3B+, Bullseye and c++. I couldnt get it yet. Any help would be welcome.

[raymondnimbus]

This doesn't seem to work with the Rpi 3 B+. I get the Failed to import fd 19 error when using the libcamera-hello in Bullseye. Any idea what needs to be changed?

[christopherlawes]

Thanks. Is there a gui you can use to control camera?

[lukasb]

Is it possible to use older camera modules like the Raspberry Pi HQ Camera V1.0 on libcamera with Bullseye? And is it possible to use it with OpenCV?

[hatlesscookie]

Has the commands for python changed? Like Thonny.

[josephusdy]

How can i put a text overlay on the jpg?

[PinebrookPictures]

Is there any tutorial on how to use libcamera with a button?

[rahulguptamps]

When i type “libcamera-hello” into the terminal, it says “ERROR: the system appears to be configured for the legacy camera stack”