Simple Raspberry Pi Film Camera

A compact digital camera for a Raspberry Pi Zero, Raspberry Pi Camera Module, 1.14-inch IPS display, and UPS-Lite. The display provides a live viewfinder, while a single physical button selects a film style or captures a full-resolution JPEG.

Tap GPIO26 to cycle through the ten styles. The selected style appears briefly on the screen. Hold GPIO26 for more than one second, then release it to capture one image in that style. Standard is selected at startup. Ilford B&W produces the black-and-white image; captures no longer create a color/B&W pair.

Sample captures

Soft Nostalgia	Ilford B&W

Camera build

Prototype	Assembled camera

Features

• Live 240x135 color viewfinder with a center-cropped 16:9 preview
• Quick shutter-frame and flash animation when a capture starts
• Full-resolution capture using the connected camera sensor's native resolution
• New photos rotated 180° while the live preview keeps its original orientation
• Ten live film styles: Standard, Classic Chrome, Kodak Portra, Fuji Velvia, Fuji Astia, Ilford B&W, Kodak Gold, Warm Natural, Golden Daylight, and Soft Nostalgia
• A short press cycles styles; a press over one second captures one styled JPEG
• The style name appears on the viewfinder for about 1.6 seconds after switching
• Automatic exposure and white balance
• Quality-92 JPEG output with the style name in the filename
• Fresh preview frames and one YUV still buffer to reduce stale frames and camera-memory pressure on a Pi Zero
• Direct JPEG saving for Standard; faster planar-YUV styling for the three warm looks
• Simple one-button shutter with no touchscreen or desktop environment required
• Automatic startup through systemd

Hardware target

• Raspberry Pi Zero W or Zero 2 W
• Raspberry Pi Camera Module v1.3, v2, or another Picamera2-compatible CSI camera
• 1.14-inch 240x135 IPS SPI LCD using the ST7789 controller
• UPS-Lite for Raspberry Pi Zero
• Normally-open momentary shutter switch

UPS-Lite supplies power only and needs no integration in the app. Shut Raspberry Pi OS down cleanly over SSH before switching off the UPS-Lite.

The included display driver is configured and tested for the 1.14-inch 240x135 ST7789 module. Similar SPI LCDs can also work, but they are not drop-in replacements. Depending on the panel and controller, adapt st7789.py for its resolution, initialization commands, orientation and color order, display-RAM offsets, SPI speed, and GPIO mapping. A display using a different controller will generally need its own driver implementation.

Wiring

The display is the eight-pin, 1.14-inch 240x135 IPS module with an ST7789 controller and pins labelled GND VCC SCL SDA RES DC CS BLK. Despite their names, SCL and SDA carry SPI clock and data; do not connect them to the Pi's I2C pins. GPIO numbers below are BCM numbers.

Part	Module label	Pi function	Physical pin
LCD	GND	Ground	6
LCD	VCC	3.3 V	1
LCD	SCL	GPIO11 / SPI0 SCLK	23
LCD	SDA	GPIO10 / SPI0 MOSI	19
LCD	RES	GPIO27	13
LCD	DC	GPIO25	22
LCD	CS	GPIO8 / SPI0 CE0	24
LCD	BLK	GPIO18	12
Shutter	one terminal	GPIO26	37
Shutter	other terminal	Ground	39

Use 3.3 V for the display supply and logic. No MISO wire is required because the LCD only receives data. The app drives BLK high after initialization and low during shutdown; do not connect BLK to both GPIO18 and 3.3 V. Switch off and disconnect Pi power before changing any wiring.

The shutter uses the Pi's internal pull-up. Do not add a connection to 3.3 V.

Connect the camera module to the Pi Zero's CSI connector with the Pi powered off. The v1.3 and v2 modules require a Pi Zero 22-pin-to-15-pin camera cable rather than a standard 15-pin cable. Seat both ends squarely and close both locking tabs.

Raspberry Pi OS setup

Use current Raspberry Pi OS Lite. Enable the camera and SPI interface:

sudo raspi-config

Under Interface Options, enable SPI. Current Raspberry Pi OS camera support uses libcamera/Picamera2 and normally needs no legacy-camera setting. Reboot, then install the platform packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y python3-picamera2 python3-opencv python3-numpy \
  python3-gpiozero python3-spidev python3-simplejpeg

Copy or clone this repository into the Pi user's home directory, then verify the app before installing the service:

cd ~/rpi-simple-camera
python3 camera.py

Pictures are written to ~/Pictures, which is created automatically. Each shutter hold saves one JPEG named with a timestamp and selected style. Stop the manual run with Ctrl+C.

To copy all captured JPEGs to another computer on the same network, run this on that computer and replace the destination path as needed:

scp 'YOUR_USER@raspberrypi.local:~/Pictures/*.jpg' ~/Desktop/

Start automatically at boot

sudo cp systemd/rpi-simple-camera.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now rpi-simple-camera.service

The bundled service file assumes the Pi username is pi and the repository is at /home/pi/rpi-simple-camera. If either differs, update User, WorkingDirectory, and ExecStart in the service file before installing it.

This is a console service and does not need X11, Wayland, a desktop session, or a framebuffer mirror. The app sends the 240x135 preview directly to the ST7789 over SPI.

Useful diagnostics:

sudo systemctl status rpi-simple-camera.service
sudo journalctl -u rpi-simple-camera.service -f
rpicam-hello --list-cameras
ls -l /dev/spidev0.0

Run the small image-helper test suite on the Pi with:

python3 -m unittest discover -s tests

Camera controls are in camera.py, style recipes are in film_styles.py, and the display driver is in st7789.py. Styled captures other than the three warm looks convert the full-resolution YUV frame to BGR for processing, so they may take longer on a Pi Zero. High-resolution cameras may need a larger CMA buffer in /boot/firmware/config.txt (for example dtoverlay=cma,cma-128); reboot after changing it. The sample images above are separate captures using the Soft Nostalgia and Ilford B&W film styles.