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Roll film

You have a roll film (or rollfilm). This unperforated film is coiled around a small spool and was originally often referred to as ‘cartridge’ film because of its resemblance to a shotgun cartridge. When exposed in an analogue camera, it capture images in negative. This means that the light areas appear dark and vice versa. The most popular roll film is type 120, which is still available, but there are also others, such as type 116, 127, 620 and 828.

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roll film

Number of pictures

The number of photos that you can take depends on the size chosen: the type 120 film can take 12 pictures of 6 x 6 cm, and 15 pictures of 4.5 x 6 cm.

More film formats

Lots of different film formats are used in photography. You can find a handy overview here.

Unused rolls

Unused roll film is sealed with a paper seal. If the roll film has been exposed already, you will see that it’s taped back up in differently. If you’re not sure whether the roll film has already been used, do not try to open the seal because daylight will expose it and render it unusable.

rolfilm

Did you know …

… roll film was invented by a farmer from Wisconsin in 1881? The farmer sold the patents to George Eastman, who made the roll film available to the general public via Kodak. The rest is history.

Find out all about the different types of roll film:

About this website

This website is an initiative set up by meemoo, the Flemish Institute for Archives, supported by the Flemish Government and ERDF. Please do not hesitate to contact us with your comments, questions or recommendations. For more information about meemoo, visit www.meemoo.be/en.

Logo excellence in media preservationThe project won an Archive Achievement Award in October 2019, presented by FIAT/IFTA, within the ‘Excellence in Media Preservation’ category.

Met de steun van Vaal nderen en EFRO europees fonds voor regionale ontwikkeling

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