Is there any such thing as the perfect camera? There's always some feature or other missing from the specs list that you wish your own camera had. So if you're not satisfied, why not build your own?
The Sitina-1 is an open-source camera project currently being developed by electronics enthusiast Wenting Zhang. Hand-built from the ground up, it comprises a 3D-printed chassis, custom-made circuit boards and a bunch of readily available components (sensor, LCD screen, lens mount), made to work together with thousands of lines of computer code.
Wenting's video of his labor of love shows him painstakingly hand-assembling circuit boards, screwing the custom-made body parts together and even welding his own battery packs. It makes for a fascinating watch:
The camera is equipped with a full-frame sensor, and uses the Sony Active E-Mount, so it can use lenses intended for the Sony Alpha cameras. But otherwise, the tech specs in the current incarnation are unlikely to have Nikon, Canon or Sony losing any sleep: 10Mp images, 5fps max shooting rate, 100-6400 ISO range, no EVF and no video. But it's a work-in-progress, subject to continuous improvement over time.
As an open-source project, Wenting shares all the technical info on this Sinita-1 project page; including the files you'll need to instruct a 3D printer, circuit diagrams and his computer code. And the results aren't half-bad: scroll through his sample shots below.
But why bother? It's a question that Wenting asks himself: "This is the most time-consuming project I've ever done and at the same time it's really hard to mass-produce or profit from. It just sounds like a bad deal, so why did I do this project? The reason is mostly just for fun. I've been into photography and electronics DIY for a while so I just thought it would be fun if I could make my own camera. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem with my existing camera, and there is really no need to build my own, it's just for fun."
So perhaps you're better off with an off-the-shelf camera after all. Here's our guide to the best mirrorless cameras
