Captured image file from PiCamera is 0kb, why?

Question

I use the following code to capture an image from PiCamera:

from picamera import PiCamera
from time import sleep

camera = PiCamera()
camera.start_preview()
sleep(5)
camera.capture('/home/pi/Desktop/image.jpg')
camera.stop_preview()

When I run the code, an image file is created on desktop but its size is 0KB. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You haven't created an object for the captured information to go to. Generally speaking, I think it's easier for beginners to learn the file method (as opposed to streams). The code below is an example taken from readthedocs.io, and should help you get started.

from time import sleep from picamera import PiCamera

# Explicitly open a new file called my_image.jpg
my_file = open('my_image.jpg', 'wb')

camera = PiCamera()
camera.start_preview()
sleep(2)
camera.capture(my_file)

# At this point my_file.flush() has been called, but the file has
# not yet been closed
my_file.close()