The connection standard they used is really meant for use in a mobile phone, with a 3cm ribbon going from the board to the camera. I've seen CSI cables close to

The connection standard they used is really meant for use in a mobile phone, with a 3cm ribbon going from the board to the camera. I've seen CSI cables close to a meter for sale, but I'm not sure how reliably they work. The sibling post about the HDMI cable seems like your best bet. The USB camera idea would work too, but it wouldn't have the same performance characteristics as the PiCam (The Pi's USB implementation is terrible, as far as throughput and CPU load).