Cameradactyl built a 20x24in camera for poster-sized instant photo printing: Digital Photography Review

Camera maker Ethan Moses from Cameradactyl built a 20x24in photo very large format camera that can be grown into positives right inside the camera’s custom film holder for near-instant prints. The result is an ‘instant’ print reminiscent of that produced by the giant Polaroid cameras built in the late 1970s.

Ethan designs and builds various cameras that he 3D prints or builds from wood in his workshop in Albuquerque, but this new bellows model is on a whole new scale. The key innovation though is not the size of the camera but the ‘self-evolving back’ that allows the exposed image to be developed right inside the mount. And using a slightly customized process, Ethan uses a mixture of black and white and color chemicals to create a positive image on the exposed sheet of paper.

Instead of using film, the back is designed to take conventional color paper such as the Fuji Crystal Archive paper used in small street labs and often developed with the RA-4 reagent kit. The back is pasted with a 20x24in sheet of paper, which is exposed in-camera and then replaced with dark glass. With the film holder removed from the camera and the conventional black and white paper tray placed into the holder through a light trap, and the paper is developed while the entire compartment is agitated.

After the paper is developed, the chemicals are poured out and replaced by a stop tank. With the growth stopping, the dark slip can be removed, the stop shed and what is now a black and white negative washed out in the light. When the print is exposed to light before fixing, when the RA-4 color developer is then poured onto the paper, a positive color image will appear. Bleach/correction is then applied to remove silver and correct the print, before washing and drying.

Ethan brought the camera to a studio in New York to show and hold a series of workshops on how to use it and understand the process, and now he plans to bring it to Los Angeles to do the same. on one’s own. To make that happen, he created a Kickstarter campaign page to gauge interest and let people pre-order to see the camera in action, use the camera, take a photo with the camera, or to Learn about how the positive process works and directly. You can also rent a camera for half a day or a full day.

For more information, see Kickstarter campaign page, an article about Ethan’s camera on Emulsion and Website cameradactyl. For more information about the live active color process meter this video about Ethan by Joe Van Cleave.

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