Ethan of Cameradactyl

[JoeV]

Pentax K1000 by Joe Van Cleave, on Flickr

I spend a day almost every week with my friend Ethan Moses, who’s had a business called Cameradactyl where he 3D prints and sells camera accessories.

Last year he engineered an entirely new “film” format using RA4 color print paper in 4 inch wide rolls, designing a 3D-printed cassette format for the paper, a film back and an automated modular processor, all of which he calls the Master System. I’ll be posting more about that in the coming days.

But for today, I have a few shots I’ll be sharing where Ethan has been learning camera repair. This shot is of him servicing a Pentax K1000.

 

[JoeV]

Nikon F by Joe Van Cleave, on Flickr

Here Ethan has a Nikon F laid out.

 

[justins7]

I have a Cameradactyl with a Mamiya Press mount that I bought from him, which is great. It's probably the best design I've tried as far as 3D printed medium format bodies.

 

[JoeV]

Ethan Photographs Jessie and Friends by Joe Van Cleave, on Flickr

Ethan was recently invited by Jesse Littlebird to do photos of people during the opening for Kukani Gallery in ABQ. Ethan used his 4 inch RA4 paper TLR camera with the paper processor running reversal chemistry, I helped keep the processor running while Ethan schmoozed and worked the camera.

He’s using about 10,000 watt-seconds of strobe power for these flash exposures, as for the RA4 reversal process the paper is already very slow but also needs the camera lens filtered in yellow/orange to correct for the blue color cast of RA4 paper (the paper is designed for printing from the orange color cast of C41 negatives), making it even slower. It was a challenge running all these power packs at once without popping the circuit breaker in the room, Ethan had to set the power packs to slow recycle.

Photos to follow.

 

[JoeV]

Direct Positive RA4 Print from Cameradactyl Master System by Joe Van Cleave, on Flickr

I grabbed these shots with my phone as the roll of paper was coming through the processor.

Ethan would load enough paper in each canister to shoot a number of people, then would load the canister into the processor while he began shooting another canister. There’s a section of the modular processor where the covers are left off, in order to intentionally fog the paper with room light — this is necessary for the reversal process. I would grab a phone shot either at this point, or when the paper was coming out of the final rinse.