After reading up on unofficial firmware for Canon cameras, I learned they are (largely) nondestructive with low (though not zero) risk of irreversible damage. Hmm, interesting, it might be worth a look to see what I can and can't do with such a thing. I went digging into my hardware pile for an old Canon camera, and came up with this PowerShot SD1100 IS. According to Digital Photography Review, this camera was announced in January 2008 so it is old enough to get a driver's license now. Its 8 megapixel sensor is outdated by modern camera standards, but I expected it is still superior to the OV5640 camera module on board Adafruit Memento. I searched CHDK's list of supported cameras and it's on the list. Great!

Unfortunately, I won't be playing with CHDK on this camera. When I pressed the power button, I expected to hear the familiar sound of a smooth Canon lens deployment. But what I heard instead was a harsh and unfamiliar sound as the lens extended. "Oh, that can't be good." I thought. The scary sound quickly stopped and camera display showed an error message: "Lens error, restart camera". Restarting the camera now has a different sound. Not the traditional smooth sound of lens deployment nor the new horrible grinding sound, but a slight buzz/click that may be a recently-toothless gear turning fruitlessly. What's clear is the lens mechanism is now stuck in a partially deployed position and power-cycling the camera as instructed does not improve the situation.

The camera has been sitting for at least five years, possibly more than ten years. My hypothesis is some part of the lens deployment mechanism had seized up after sitting unused for that time. And when I turned on the camera, the lens deployment gearbox encountered a lot of resistance. The good news is that it was strong enough to free the seized mechanism, the bad news is the effort to do so damaged itself. Well, I guess now it is a teardown project. I will take it apart and see if I find anything that proves or disproves my hypothesis.