Photographer Ethan Moses of Cameradactyl is well known not only for his photo skills but also for his remarkable engineering efforts. He has built a 20 by 24-inch instant camera, 3D-printable 35mm panoramic camera, and 3D-printed 4×5 field camera, to name just a few. Moses’ latest creation is arguably his most ambitious: the Cameradactyl Master System. It comprises a new analog photography format, a camera that uses it, and a modular photographic processing system.
A New Analog Photography Format
The Cameradactyl Master System leverages RA-4 photographic paper, which comes in rolls ranging from about four inches wide to up to 50 inches wide.
“When you go get your film developed at the lab, they generally have two main processors — one for film, one for prints,” Moses tells PetaPixel. “If you get 4×6 inch prints made, they run your film through a ‘minilab’ or automated enlarger/processor which takes huge rolls of four-inch paper, up to 600 feet long. Because of this, four-inch roll paper is still pretty ubiquitous in pro photo and photofinishing supply houses like B&H, Adorama, Freestyle, etc.”
When photographers take their film to a lab, the typical RA-4 process produces color prints from color-negative film. However, it is possible to do an RA-4 reversal process to capture photos directly from a camera. This requires filtration and some special processing tricks, but it’s entirely possible, and photographers do it often.
However, it’s not accessible because using RA-4 paper in a camera requires finagling and processing it is rarely straightforward. However, with Moses’ new standardization system, roll paper back, and processor, the friction has been removed.
Moses is quick to point out that he did not invent this material or the photographic process for working with RA-4 paper. However, what he did invent is critical. He created the standardized canister and ecosystem to easily use RA-4 as an analog photographic format.
With the new standardized canister, photographers can shoot with a long roll of RA-4 paper on a standard 4×5 large-format analog camera, getting up to 106 paper negatives or positives per roll. That’s a lot of shots.
But why RA-4?
“It’s a long, branching story,” Moses admits. “It has something to do with my grandfather making aerial maps in WWII, and something to do with Phelippe Hallsman and the Fairchild Corporation and a few custom 4×5 TLRs made from those aerial camera designs, and then a series of cameras by Peter Gowland, all of which lost their enormous roll film backs when they became civilian cameras not bolted to planes.”
“Those cameras became a style of 4×5 hand cameras since way back, and you can see Margaret Bourke-White holding one in many of her self portraits, usually still with a small handholdable roll film back.”
Moses also notes the Globuscope 4×5 camera, a truly beautiful camera. “There are a million iterations of these sorts of cameras. I made one, most of my 3D-printed camera colleagues and competitors offer their take on the design. It’s a camera style I have built hundreds of with my own hands.”
That explains the new back and camera design, but what about the RA-4 format?
“When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in the darkroom. My dad was into buying broken color darkroom equipment on eBay in the late 90s and fixing it, so I was printing in RA-4 and Ilfochrome around Y2K,” Moses continues. He adds that he is in the “little pocket of the demographic” that grew up during a time when there was still analog photography, but students were learning digital design tools. Moses has a particular set of skills, all on full display through Cameradactyl.
“So I had this giant 20×24 camera that shot RA-4 reversal, and I knew how processors worked and that roll paper was readily available. It just seemed like the thing should exist. It made too much sense to me that it should exist, so I’m honestly surprised nobody else did it,” Moses continues. “It seemed like the roll back and hand cameras were begging to be reunited.”
“I guess I did it because I was in the right place at the right time and was willing to burn time and savings to change the nature of my business,” Moses continues.
“So why did I do it? It’s a good question, and I may have lost sight.”
A Years-Long Journey of Love and Determination
Perhaps he did, but this sprawling journey is an incredible one, and the result is a novel analog format that makes so much sense that it should exist and a modular photo processor that may ultimately change the photographic landscape for the better. But more on that in a bit.
“It was a labor of love. I have sketches for parts of these machines going back to 2019 and 2020. The engineering was difficult, but I have a mental toolset for dealing with those sorts of problems. I am comfortable being stumped for a few days by an issue. I am confident I can figure my way through things,” the photographer and engineer continues.
But he admits his Cameradactyl Master System was risky and expensive. “The effort was taking risk and managing anxiety. The effort was burning almost a year and a half of time, and overhead, and chemicals and plastic filament and marine-grade bolts and every 12V DC high torque motor on Amazon. Almost a quarter-mile of Kentmere 100 and Fomapan, and well more than a mile of roll paper. The list goes on.
“The effort is keeping my shit together while I burn everything down in service of this one thing that I know is worth so much more than whatever financial brutality it takes to get it done. The effort is in taking the risk that you put it all into this one thing knowing you ultimately have no control over how people will respond and yet, that will ultimately decide if I get to proceed.”
Moses has taken risks before — lots of them. His projects typically take months of focused work to complete. Some of them were successful, while others were not.
“This one was significantly bigger and scarier, but also more rewarding and fulfilling,” Moses remarks.
So, the new Cameradactyl Master System has the new RA-4 roll paper format that can be mounted to any 4×5 Graflok-compatible camera, but there are processing hurdles that must be cleared to make photographic prints using RA-4 paper.
A Groundbreaking New Photo Processing System
The other massive part of the Cameradactyl Master System is the new modular photo processor that can process color film, black and white film, and, of course, the RA-4 photos.
“The project started in earnest on January 1, 2024, and I was originally making a large reversal processor. But as the project consumed me, it morphed into a small modular processor that could be configured to many photo processes,” Moses explains.
“I thought, and still do think, that while it’s not the most exciting ‘new analog format’ use of the machine, it’s a no-brainer to set it up in a college or community darkroom, always filled with BW film chemicals, and available for people to just pop their film in have it spit out dry negatives.”
“It is the first continuous film processor that’s modular and so small, like a liter of chemicals per stage, not a giant Noritsu or Fuji machine you need a forklift to move,” Moses explains. He says he brought one to a local maker space near him, and it lives there in the darkroom. Users refresh the chemicals about once a week. “It’s definitely a hit,” Moses adds.
From an art perspective, Moses is excited about using the processor configured for RA-4 reversal, which fits nicely with his new camera and roll canister.
“That would be really hard to do with an RA-4 or C41 or even E6 or Cibachrome machine.”
“It, along with the roll paper back and canister standard, will change how people use the materials, it will change the process. It’s the first time someone can make really prolific work in the medium.”
He admits the format has limitations, peculiarities, and unique artifacts, but these are features, not flaws.
“It is undeniably unique in appearance, and to me, uniquely beautiful,” he says of RA-4.
“It’s really special to be able to shoot a few hundred large-format frames and process them and share them all in one day. On some level, it’s an instant analog gratification machine built for the age of Instagram. It’s an art factory machine that you can use to produce one-of-a-kind original prints. The thought tickles my brain.”
Philanthropic Art
Moses is selling some of these instant prints as part of a new approach to his business. While he is still making and selling the completed products, he is trying something different to fund releasing all the files for the Cameradactyl Master System to the world.
“I just got to do my dream job for a year and a half, although burning cash rather than making it,” Moses explains. “I really think the work is excellent. The machines are all just about exactly what I imagined and they work really well. They will change the way people make photographs.”
“The work was long, hard, and at times, brutal. But also about as beautiful and fulfilling an experience as I could have ever hoped for. I want to do it again. I have a million things I want to design next.”
In pursuit of making this dream a reality, Moses has realized that he must be able to slow down and focus on one thing at a time. He can’t adequately work on creating new products while constantly building existing ones for sale, although he is still doing that for now.
“I cannot believe I wouldn’t be able to support myself doing only what I am good at and exactly what I am good at, what needs to be done and nobody else is doing, all the time, 60 to 80 hours a week,” he explains.
So that’s what he is trying to do now, he is asking the photography world to buy him out, $500 at a time. Moses is releasing the file sets for his new Cameradactyl Master System bit by bit by selling original prints he made and processed using his new system.
“My primary target market for a $500 ‘Ethan’ original are people who would buy a file set for $500. To those people, $500 is a deal,” he says. “My secondary market are competitors,” who Moses says will pay to access the files so they can make his designs to sell for themselves.
“Forcing everyone to collaborate and buy me out prevents the $500 file sale from going to one of said competitors who will absolutely start selling my machines for less than I can even manufacture them for. There are already copies and developments of a bunch of my projects and the Master System will be no different.”
The third market for his $500 ‘Ethans’ is the “actual, real-ass art market.”
“I think it’s a neat way that the art market can actually spur what little technological innovation and preservation I am able to produce with all my being. I know there will always be a better cause, but maybe we could think of this like philanthropic art, but for banking photoprocessors to the internet for the future.”
Moses is aiming to raise $300,000, at which point the entire file system for the Cameradactyl Master System will be released to the world. Each print he is selling was captured during the process of creating his new magnum opus, and he notes that they get “better” chronologically as he worked out various kinks and solved issues.
“The market for photo processor parts is unequivocally dwindling,” he notes, and his new photo processor is not only novel in its design and modularity, but it is perhaps the last, best hope for photo processing to remain accessible to a growing community of analog photographers.
Ethan Moses believes in his work and that what he has created is valuable and essential. I believe in him, too.
Image credits: Ethan Moses / Cameradactyl
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