I’ve made a very bad video about the Custard Cream Camera. The way I see it, a bad video is better than no video. Your opinion may differ. I’ve also made the Custard Cream Camera repository public so you can build your own if you really want to. You can find it here
This is the first picture ever captured with the Bourbon Camera, the next in a line of biscuit themed photographic devices.
The latest version of the Custard Cream Camera isn’t a camera. It’s an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server instead. Turns out that quite a few modern cameras can send out their pictures over FTP. The new non-camera camera shares all the features of the original, including printing, photo editing and publishing, but it doesn’t take pictures. Perhaps I’m going to have to work on that name.
I should probably make it display the pictures the right way up
One of the things I liked the most about the PlayStation 3 was a photo display mode which showed your pictures being dropped onto a table as if they were physical photographs. Yesterday Claude and I had a go at replicating the experience in the browser. I think we are getting close. There’s a funny sliding movement when the picture hits the table that needs work and I want to add some more lighting effects, but it is quite fun to watch. If you want to see it in action, head to https://custardcream.cam/ and click “Watch the slideshow”.
The Custard Cream Camera sends images to Google Nanobanana for processing. You speak your commands, for example “Add cheese”, and the image and the command are sent over the internet. When I started doing this I was a bit worried about the cost of using AI like this, but it turns out to be bearable. I did a lot of processing at emf, and we’ve been playing with the camera this week, but I’ve only used around six pounds worth of the service. If you fancy having a go with it, don’t let the price put you off.
I quite like dew-lumen-shell
The Custard Cream Camera is backed by the Custard Cream server, which you can find at: https://custardcream.cam/ The camera has a “publish” command that sends pictures to the server for the whole world wide internet to scrape.
You find pictures by their unique three word address or you can just view random shots. The really interesting thing about this server is that it is running on my desk. I’m using a Raspberry Pi 5 to host everything. It’s connected via a Cloudflared connection which does all the clever mapping between the domain name (custardcream.cam) and the node.js application that hosts the site.
It really is very easy (and surprisingly cheap) to get a web presence using a tiny computer you might already own and a little bit of configuration.
The camera will make line drawings too
We had a nice Hardware Meetup today. I took the Custard Cream Camera along and turned a few folk into Lego. I’ll have it at the next meetup, maybe by then I’ll have made the printer work reliably.
On the top you can see the Raspberry Pi that controls everything. Underneath is the printer battery holder and the Raspberry Pi HQ camera module.
Every now and then at emf someone would ask me if the nut, bolt or washer they’d found on the floor was from the Custard Cream Camera. It usually was. I’d got everything nice and tight when I built the camera, but the jostling must have worked things loose. Also, I think that PLA (the filament type that I used) tends to deform when compressed, which loosened things. I’m going to have to add some locking nuts and maybe some varnish to hold the parts of the case together.
Waking up with the Custard Cream Camera
Today is the last day of EMF. Which is sad. I spent the morning learning about Canbus and the afternoon I went to sessions about the Tildagon badge design and PAL TV amongst other things. Then, in the golden hour just after sunset I took the Custard Cream Camera for a walk and grabbed a bunch of pictures, printed them and handed them out. When the outside light failed I took the camera into the Null Sector nightclub and tried to make it work with the available light there. Which was great fun. Thanks to all my patient subjects.
Sometimes the camera heard “turn into Logo” rather than “turn into lego”
We also went along to the closing ceremony, where all the volunteers took to the stage. There were so many that there was concern that stage wouldn’t support them all. Hundreds of people gave up their time to make this amazing non-profit event. The best news came right at the end, when they told us they were planning for emf in 2028. I’ll be there, with whatever the Custard Cream Camera has turned into by then.
I still remembered “plugh”
We found our way into the arcade tent where they had a teletype running the Colossal Caverns adventure game. It was super nostalgic to press the keys, hear the clunk and see the printed output.
The bar seemed as good a place as any to upgrade the conference badge. For 2026 there is a new badge face and sensor board which much improves the control switches and looks really snazzy. The badge runs apps from the festival App store. I’ve added one called Custard Cream which you can run to view pictures taken by the custard cream camera.
The Custard Cream Camera is working well
They’ve done this rather cunning thing with the Null Sector nightclub this year. They’ve pointed all the speakers away from the camp rather than towards it. This means that it is a lot quieter in bed at night, although I didn’t seem to have any trouble getting to sleep as it turned out.
We got up bright and early today and headed off down the motorway to Electromagnetic Field. The motorways were mostly clear, the weather was mostly very warm. Just the temperatures for carrying tents, groundsheets and Custard Cream Cameras around. Once we had the tent up and everything in place we went out for a walk and to take some pictures. Then we repaired to the Lounge to take a look at what we had, and fiddle with it a bit.
EMF has this rather nice sign. I asked the Custard Cream Camera to put it on the moon.
Then I added a bit more cheese to the event…
…before turning one lucky person into Lego…
Then we headed back to the tent to get things ready for tomorrow. If you want to see these and many other pictures from the event you can go to: https://custardcream.cam/ Just hit the “See a random picture” link to, er, see a random picture.
One of the reasons that I created the Custard Cream Camera was to make a device that had built in AI filters. I was inspired by Banamera to create something you could speak commands to. I’ve got it working now. Above is the first ever image processed result. It took a photograph of a large rubber duck in a frying pan and turned it into a cartoon of a large rubber duck in a frying pan.
This is going to go down well at EMF….
The camera with a duck and a printed picture of the duck
Please don’t ask me why it is called the “Custard Cream Camera”. Just take a look at the box and use your imagination. Anyhoo, it is now mostly complete and working. I’ve no idea how reliable it is or what will happen when I throw it in a tent and then go round taking snaps of happy festival goes.
But we’ll find out later this week.
It has a user interface and everything
I thought the support trees that you get when 3D printing looked too good to throw away….
This is how the centre box of the Custard Cream Camera case was printed. The amazing thing is that the camera hole and the camera supports (which you can see at the back of the picture) came out perfectly in spite of the way that the supports were printed as horizontal objects. This experience has cured me of any concerns about using support in prints. It really does just work. Very impressed.
I can make two camera handles with just one set
I’m making a big camera. In a big box. With a printer. It’s going to be quite heavy. And it will need a handle. I’ve managed to find these on Amazon. They are supposed to be used for underwater photography. You put a camera in the middle and some lights on the top. But they come to pieces to leave you with two handles and two fairly sturdy base plates, which are the bits I’m going to be using. I managed to get mine “nearly new” for the princely sum of fourteen pounds. If you are building anything that needs a handle, they are well worth a look.
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
