Building a Digicam from Scanner Elements

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Want a weird & wobbly digital camera, but don't want to spend over $100? Well, Matthias Wandel, whose site is due for some /. lovin', used the guts of a cheap scanner, some camera parts, and scrap wood to build a very high quality digitcal camera. Read about progress at this site. Oh, and he also builds things out of legos as well." I personally think that his Jenga Pistol and wasp-vacuum are pretty neat too.

Progress?

[idonotexist]

Well it is now May 5, 2002. Perhaps he purchased a new digital camera since his latest update? The text below is from his site. I think it is safe to assume this project is collecting dust.

July 2000 Update:
Well, within a year of building this contraption, I bought a digital camera anyways. My first digital camera was an Olympus D340R, bought it in June 1999. Then, in June 2000, I bought a cannon PowerShot S100 (the Digital Elph). Awesome little camera. Haven't used my scanning contraption much, although it is still capable of producing images sharper than what comes out of a 3.3 megapixel digicam.

Re:lens issues

[zome]

there are plenty of them on ebay.
I just bought a very old vivitar SLR completed with working 50mm f1.4 and non-working 85mm f1.8. These lens are totally manual.

Re:lens issues

[psavo]

Something like this is going to be next to impossible to find. and might be a photographic collectable as well?

My local shop has about 3-400 lenses _in shop_. And we're talking about Finland/Helsinki, not freaking NY/Adorama.

For those who don't know: most modern lenses are fully manually operable, etc. you can set aperture & focus with your hands, without electric contact.