How to Add a Camera in Blender

The essential answer

In Blender, adding a camera means creating a Camera object in your 3D scene. That object is the viewpoint Blender uses when you look through the camera and when you render an image or animation. A new scene often already includes one camera; adding another gives you a second viewpoint you can switch to.

The word camera is easy to mix up here. A Blender Camera object is a 3D scene item with a position, rotation, and lens settings. A USB or laptop webcam is a physical device used for video calls and photos. This article covers the Blender Camera object.

Add a Camera object

Work in the 3D Viewport, the window that shows your scene in three dimensions. Move the mouse over that viewport so Blender applies shortcuts there.

• Place the 3D cursor where you want the camera to appear. The new camera is created at the 3D cursor. Left-click to move the cursor, or use Shift+Right-click with the default keymap.
• Open the Add menu with Shift+A, or choose Add from the 3D Viewport header.
• Choose Camera.
• Check the Outliner (the scene tree, usually at the top right) for a new object named Camera, Camera.001, or similar.

Success at this stage looks like a new camera wireframe in the viewport: a rectangular body with a triangular up flag and a pyramid that shows the viewing cone. The object is selected, and its name appears in the Outliner.

Make it the active camera

Blender renders from the active camera, which is the camera currently assigned to the scene or view layer. Adding a Camera object creates the object. It becomes the render camera after you set it as active, unless it is already the scene’s camera.

• Select the camera you just added.
• Choose View, then Cameras, then Set Active Object as Camera. With the default keymap you can also press Ctrl+Numpad 0 while the camera is selected.
• Look through it by pressing Numpad 0, or choose View, then Cameras, then Active Camera. The viewport should show the scene inside a camera frame, often with darkened edges (the passepartout) outside the picture.

If your keyboard has no number pad, use the View menu path above, or turn on Emulate Numpad in Preferences under Input so the top-row number keys act as numpad keys. Menu names follow Blender’s default interface; an Industry Compatible keymap uses different shortcuts. Labels can also shift slightly between Blender versions.

Confirm the camera will render

Camera view in the viewport and a finished render are separate checks. Viewport camera view shows how the camera is aimed. A render is the image Blender produces from that camera.

• Press Numpad 0 and confirm you see your scene through the camera frame.
• Press F12, or choose Render, then Render Image. The render should match that framing.
• If the image is empty or objects vanish, select the camera and open its data properties (the green camera icon in the Properties editor). Raise Clip End if distant objects are missing, or lower Clip Start if nearby objects disappear. These clipping distances control how near and far the camera can see.
• Use Focal Length in the same panel to make the shot wider or tighter. Blender shows this value in millimetres on the camera sensor.

Place and aim the camera

Select the camera in the viewport or the Outliner. Press G to move it and R to rotate it. You can also select the camera, enter camera view with Numpad 0, open the sidebar with N, open the View tab, and enable Lock Camera to View. Orbit, pan, and zoom then move the camera itself, which is a practical way to frame a shot.

To match the camera to what you are already looking at, choose View, then Align View, then Align Active Camera to View (default shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Numpad 0). To keep the camera pointed at a subject, select the camera, add a Track To or Damped Track constraint in the Constraints properties, and set the target object.

Shift+A              Add menu (choose Camera)
Ctrl+Numpad 0        Set selected object as active camera
Numpad 0             Toggle camera view
Ctrl+Alt+Numpad 0    Align active camera to the current view
G / R                Move / rotate the selected camera
N                    Toggle the sidebar (Lock Camera to View)
F12                  Render image

Limits and next steps

These steps create and aim a 3D Camera object. Operating-system camera permission, webcam preview, and video-call quality are handled in your call app and system settings. If you need a physical webcam for a meeting, select that device there.

Blender can also load stills or video as a background or as footage for camera tracking. That is a separate workflow from adding a Camera object, and the exact panels depend on your Blender version. After the camera exists and is active, typical next actions are setting Focal Length, enabling Depth of Field if you want blur, and choosing an output resolution in Output properties before you render.