From the original post, you already have the camera, and already have it torn apart, so any other suggestions are useless, since you already dug yourself a hole (committed yourself) to extending the cable. It's just doubtful many, if any have attempted something like this. Even if you do manage to extend the cable, hard to predict how it's going to perform, you are adding resistance, as well as a great potential for picking up noise and errors, which the camera may not handle well. You will never know for sure until you try it, but doubt anyone, even the camera's design team can tell you if it's going to work.
If you can get a couple of FPC connectors, and a spare camera FPC cable, you might be able to make a couple of adapter boards. Would guess there are quite a few conductors, so good luck with that. Should also mention that a camera's sensor resolution is meaningless, if your optical components or poor. The right lens for the application makes a huge difference.
I don't think anyone is saying it's impossible, just impractical, risky, and low probability. I do remember that about a year ago, somebody posted a link to a company that specializes in FPC cables and connectors, my interest was for some small graphic LCD displays, never pursued though, kind of expensive for my budget at the time. Might try searching the forum or the web.