Sure, what you’re talking about is reaching minimum viable product:
The MVP for Kinograph 2.0 as I understand it based on the design criteria is a usable, functional, and reliable 35mm and 16mm film scanner (picture only, no sound) in an open-source design. If you don’t touch all bases then you’ll end up spending too much time fixing problems that should have been solved in the design/manufacturing phase. Eg backlights failing prematurely requiring replacement.
Without your own software to control the camera I’d say the product is in alpha stage or beta stage.
You don’t want to add any complexity unless necessary. If it becomes too much like a DIY project then it won’t meet the needs of the non-technical user who isn’t a DIY person, and anything that can go wrong will go wrong as they say. Besides there’s plenty of time to get feedback and no rush. Once you have some representative users you can get needs assessment feedback from them, whereas trying to do that now risks biasing your data towards one group of stakeholders.
Exactly. Plus you can continue development for it.