Roll film or rollfilm is any type of spool-wound photographic film protected from white light exposure by a paper backing. The term originated in contrast to sheet film. Confusingly, roll film was originally often referred to as "cartridge" film because of its resemblance to a shotgun cartridge. The opaque backing paper allows roll film to be loaded in daylight. It is typically printed with frame number markings which can be viewed through a small red window at the rear of the camera. A spool of roll film is usually loaded on one side of the camera and pulled across to an identical take up spool on the other side of the shutter as exposures are made. When the roll is fully exposed, the take up spool is removed for processing and the empty spool on which the film was originally wound is moved to the other side, becoming the take up spool for the next roll of film.

History

In 1881 a farmer in Cambria, Wisconsin, Peter Houston, invented the first roll film camera. His younger brother David, filed the patents for various components of Peter's camera. David Henderson Houston (born June 14, 1841; died May 6, 1906), originally from Cambria, Wisconsin, patented the first holders for flexible roll film.
/ref> Houston moved to Hunter,_North_Dakota, Hunter in

Dakota Territory The Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of N ...

in 1880. He was issued an 1881 patent for a roll film holder which he licensed to

George Eastman George Eastman (July 12, 1854March 14, 1932) was an American entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company and helped to bring the photographic use of roll film into the mainstream. He was a major philanthropist, establishing the Eastman ...

(it was used in Eastman's

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

1888 box camera). Houston sold the patent (and an 1886 revision) outright to Eastman for $5000 in 1889. Houston continued developing the camera, creating 21 patents for cameras or camera parts between 1881 and 1902.Hammer, 1940, pp.55ff. In 1912 his estate transferred the remainder of his patents to Eastman. Rollfilm Ilford FP4 HP5 und Fuji Velvia Astia Provia

Rollfilm Ilford FP4 HP5 und Fuji Velvia Astia Provia

The most popular roll film format is 120 film, which is used in most medium format cameras and roll film magazines for

large-format Large format refers to any imaging format of or larger. Large format is larger than "medium format", the or size of Hasselblad, Mamiya, Rollei, Kowa, and Pentax cameras (using 120- and 220-roll film), and much larger than the frame o ...

cameras. Until the 1950s, 120 roll film was, with the smaller

127 film 127 is a roll film format for still photography introduced by Kodak in 1912. The film itself is 46 mm wide, placing it between 35 mm and 120 "medium format" films in terms of size. The image format normally used is a square 4 ...

, also used in the simplest of box cameras and other snapshot cameras. The use of roll film in consumer cameras was largely superseded by 135 and 126 cartridges, but 120 and 220 (double length) film are still commonly used in medium format cameras.

Automatic film speed sensing

In 1998,

Fujifilm , trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, biotechnology, and chemicals. The offerings from the ...

introduced a film identification system for

120 120 may refer to: *120 (number), the number * AD 120, a year in the 2nd century AD *120 BC, a year in the 2nd century BC *120 film, a film format for still photography * ''120'' (film), a 2008 film * 120 (MBTA bus) * 120 (New Jersey bus) * 120 (Ken ...

and 220 format roll film called ''

Barcode System DX (Digital indeX) encoding is an ANSI and I3A standard, originally introduced by Kodak in March 1983, for marking 135 and APS photographic film and film cartridges. It consists of several parts, a latent image DX film edge barcode on the film be ...

'' (with logo ", , , B"). The

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

encoding the film format and length as well as the

film speed Film speed is the measure of a photographic film's sensitivity to light, determined by sensitometry and measured on various numerical scales, the most recent being the ISO system. A closely related ISO system is used to describe the relation ...

and type is located on the sticker between the emulsion carrying film and the backing paper. This 13-bit barcode is optically scanned by newer medium format cameras like the Fujifilm GA645i Professional, GA645Wi Professional, GA645Zi Professional, GX645AF Professional, GX680III Professional, GX680IIIS Professional,

Hasselblad H1 Victor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium format cameras, photographic equipment and image scanners based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company originally became known for its classic analog medium-format cameras that used a waist ...

, H2, H2F and H3D Model I with HM 16-32 as well as by the

Contax 645 AF Contax (stylised as CONTAX in the Kyocera era) began as a German camera model in the Zeiss Ikon line in 1932, and later became a brand name. The early cameras were among the finest in the world, typically featuring high quality Zeiss interchan ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roll Film Film formats Photography equipment

History

Automatic film speed sensing

See also

References