Comments on: ESP32-CAM Take Photo and Save to MicroSD Card with Date and Time (timestamp)

By: Owain

Owain — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 10:51:44 +0000

Great tutorial, absolutely crystal clear, thanks!

One small problem I had: a 4GB card formatted as a single volume couldn’t be mounted. Reformatting with a 512MB partition worked.

By: Stephan

Stephan — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 22:05:38 +0000

Hello Sara and Rui! Another great project. Thank you. Like many others have tried to use a RTC (internal or external) to grab the time from for the file name, so the camera can be used with a IR trigger where there is no WiFi. Is it a lost cause, because of the limited pins available when using the SD card? If there was a way, the internal RTC could be used while taking photos, and updated once in a while when it comes within wifi? Thank you!

By: Viktor

Viktor — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 23:21:06 +0000

In reply to Sara Santos.

Thank you,
these are great examples for people’s eventual personal projects.

I’d like to use ESP32CAM as security camera which uploads images to a server when alert is triggered. For the case when intruder locates the camera and steals it. However pictures should also be saved on SD card. For the case that intruder turns off electricity and there is no WIFI connection. Each camera will be battery powered so it won’t shut down and can keep doing its job.
I have not found similar project on github yet, so I would like to work on it myself. But it’s very challenging if you have close to zero knowledge of C++, PHP or other programing languages required.
With your examples I have at least something that I can work with. Let’s see how far I can go to make my case scenario happen.

By: Sara Santos

Sara Santos — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 09:35:59 +0000

In reply to Viktor.

Hi.
You can try to implement something like this: https://randomnerdtutorials.com/esp32-datalogger-download-data-file/
Or like this:
https://randomnerdtutorials.com/esp32-cam-http-post-php-arduino/
https://randomnerdtutorials.com/esp32-cam-display-pictures-firebase-web-app/
Regards,
Sara

By: Viktor

Viktor — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:57:03 +0000

This is cool! Great tutorial.

Let’s say I am lazy and don’t want to remove the SD card and view/download pictures from remote host. Is there any option to implement some FTP/SMB server that will allow me to do that?

By: Carson

Carson — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 13:14:05 +0000

once the SD card is full of pictures, do you have/do you know a function or an additional code which erase the oldest pictures/overwrite on it?

By: Michiel van Duin

Michiel van Duin — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 13:34:06 +0000

In reply to Miles.

The tutorial really helped me too! Thanks @SaraSantos!
I did find out how to disable the flash, however I do not completely understand why.
I replaced: “if(!SD_MMC.begin()){” with:
“if(!SD_MMC.begin(“/sdcard”, true)){ //adding “/sdcard”, true turns the LED that is used as flash off, removing this enables the flash”

Reference: reddit.com/r/esp32/comments/nvgt1p/disabling_auto_flash_on_the_esp32_cam/

By: Miles

Miles — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 06:01:35 +0000

Hi, great tutorial.
1) How can I prevent the Flash from triggering each time the photo is taken?
2) Is there a way to adjust the camera exposure time so that I can take night photos – I’m using the 850nm camera?
thanks

By: Sara Santos

Sara Santos — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 21:06:46 +0000

In reply to johnny.

Hi.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I’ll take a look at it.
Regards,
Sara

By: johnny

johnny — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 03:55:22 +0000

Hi Rui and Sara

Thank you for this project
I do appreciate it
I wish you the best and berkah. amin
btw, when can you upgrade to 5MP camera? ov5640?