this is awesome! I’ve wanted to go down this same route and make either a fully custom camera or a digital back for a medium or large format camera, but the amount of expertise and expense involved in making even a relatively simple scanner back (much less a full CCD camera) is daunting. til then, I suppose I can always do an 8mm cinema camera if I get that kind of itch: https://youtu.be/cuwTC194y_8

and because my palms are now sweating about building a cinepi:

• the set of mods people use to enable physical controls, scripting, and experimental shooting modes for cinepi: https://github.com/Tiramisioux/CineMate
• there’s apparently a CinePi XL coming out with a custom 1” sensor (I didn’t know this was possible — can you just source a good 1” CMOS from somewhere and manufacture a board and mount for it?): https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/articles/cinepi-xl

and as always, it’s a shame they’re just shy of good 4k and reliable in-camera audio sync because of how flaky raspberry pi’s engineering tends to be. it’d be interesting to spec out a version of this camera with a different SBC and sensor architecture, though I do like how singularly inexpensive and scriptable the cinepi itself is