Build your own point-and-shoot camera with Bigshot

Just got it as a birthday present for my son. The idea is nice, the hand crank cute, but the image quality is just a disaster. I really did not expect much, but it's FAR below even the lowest expectations. The flash is completely useless. Too bright for close things, to weak for far ones. I will give a try tomorrow outdoor, but the intension was to get a cam for stop motion movies. My little one loves this. Naturally they are taken indoor - looks very very bad.
What a waste, it costs around 100 Euros incl. shipping here. For 30 Euros I wouldn't be sad, mounting it is fun. But for the price it's just a nightmare. Need to find another present tomorrow, because this one is an offense even for a 7 year old child.

this was the perfect gift for my son's 11th birthday. I loves it, he built it himself and he's very proud of it.
Can't stop him taking pictures...

Kids these days have short attention spans. They're not interested in carrying around a camera let alone build one.
They have their smartphone cameras and Instagram app. That's about as far they'd go with photography.

Lens Setting: Field of View (35mm Equivalent - Horizontally)
Regular: 40° (~50mm)
Panoramic: 80° (~22mm)
and Stereo (3D): 16° (~128mm)
Image Size: 2408x1536

http://www.bigshotcamera.com/camera/specifications

interesting FL FOV

the WA 22mm equivalent FL for panorama mode interests me so long as the image captured is not pre-cropped, but left uncropped.
just checked...
good: apparently panorama software cropping is option for wide shots

now
all they need to do is add interchangeable fisheye lens, etc
and one has an affordable green digital lomography alternative !
:)

I'm going buy one of these for one of my sons at Christmas :)

http://www.flickr.com/groups/bigshotcamera/ on Flickr...

this is cool! and pretty much affordable

I think the point of this camera (which a lot of people are missing) is to get kids excited about going out and taking pictures... How many kids can go and take pictures with a camera they "built"? I think for most, it would be a huge sense of accomplishment to capture and see images from an instrument that they assembled themselves, regardless of the level of complexity. Besides, what 8-10 year old is really going to, or wants to understand focal ratios and depth of field and ISO settings... The best camera is the one you have with you and it's quite possible a kid would be more likely to have this camera with them, purely from the pride they have for it. Ok, now can we have some adult kits please? ;-)

Too bad other cameras aren't as friendly to tinkering or rebuilding. Of course, then they might not be as small or snuggy constructed. Anyone who dismantles a P&S to clean a sensor also discovers that dust ingested by the operation may exceed the dust removed.

Oh, how about a medium format version of the same instructional "toy"?

One thing you can't do, however, is build your own sensor. Home brewing or gardening are an easier reach.

Like the hand crank. Makes it work Rollei / Hasselblad style. Wind the crank and take a picture.

Very cool. Hopefully there will be a number of camera modules in the future. It would be nice if they make the connection specs publically available, so we could build/adapt our own modules too.

Particularly good to see 3D appearing in a camera at this price point!

I don't remember how long ago I first heard of this, but it's been a while. Very nice instructional thing for kids... but I think it would be better if they also opened-up the camera software so that kids could script it to take photos, etc. Probably using a chip set that doesn't make that too easy, but that's where I'd go next.... ;-)