Using a USB Webcam with Raspberry Pi

You can use a standard USB webcam to take photos and videos on the Raspberry Pi instead of using the Raspberry Pi camera module.

NOTE:The quality and configurability of the camera module far exceed that of a standard USB webcam.

First, install the fswebcam package:

sudo apt install fswebcam

If you are not using the default user account pi, you need to add your username to the video group; otherwise, you will see a ‘permission denied’ error.

sudo usermod -a -G video <username>

To check if the user has been correctly added to the group, use the groups command.

Basic Usage

Enter the fswebcam command followed by the filename to take a photo with the webcam and save it to the specified filename:

fswebcam image.jpg

This command will display the following information:

--- Opening /dev/video0...Trying source module v4l2.../dev/video0 opened.No input was specified, using the first.Adjusting resolution from 384x288 to 352x288.--- Capturing frame...Corrupt JPEG data: 2 extraneous bytes before marker 0xd4Captured frame in 0.00 seconds.--- Processing captured image...Writing JPEG image to 'image.jpg'.

NOTE: Using a small default resolution will display a timestamp banner.

The resolution of the webcam used in this example is 1280 x 720. To specify what resolution I want to capture the image, please use the following -r flag:

fswebcam -r 1280x720 image2.jpg

This command will display the following information:

--- Opening /dev/video0...Trying source module v4l2.../dev/video0 opened.No input was specified, using the first.--- Capturing frame...Corrupt JPEG data: 1 extraneous bytes before marker 0xd5Captured frame in 0.00 seconds.--- Processing captured image...Writing JPEG image to 'image2.jpg'.

The webcam took a photo at full resolution and displayed the banner.

Remove Banner

Now add the –no-banner flag:

fswebcam -r 1280x720 --no-banner image3.jpg

Which displays the following information:

--- Opening /dev/video0...Trying source module v4l2.../dev/video0 opened.No input was specified, using the first.--- Capturing frame...Corrupt JPEG data: 2 extraneous bytes before marker 0xd6Captured frame in 0.00 seconds.--- Processing captured image...Disabling banner.Writing JPEG image to 'image3.jpg'.

Now, the photo is taken at full resolution without the banner.

Basic Usage

Enter the fswebcam command followed by the filename to take a photo with the webcam and save it to the specified filename:

Remove Banner

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