Roll film
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Rollfilm or roll film is any type of spool-wound photographic film protected from white light exposure by a paper backing, as opposed to film which is protected from exposure and wound forward in a cartridge. Confusingly, rollfilm was originally often referred to as "cartridge" film because of its resemblance to a shotgun cartridge. The opaque backing paper allows rollfilm 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 rollfilm is usually loaded on one side of the camera and pulled across to an identical takeup spool on the other side of the shutter as exposures are made. When the roll is fully exposed, the takeup spool is removed for processing and the empty spool on which the film was originally wound is moved to the other side, becoming the takeup spool for the next roll of film.
Rollfilm was invented by George Eastman[citation needed] and first used in his Kodak box camera of 1888. Rollfilm remained the format of choice for inexpensive snapshot cameras through the end of the 1950s, the most common sizes being 127 and 828 for small format cameras and 120 and 116 for medium format cameras. The use of rollfilm in snapshot cameras was largely superseded by 135 and 126 cartridges, but 120 and 220 film is still commonly used in medium format cameras.
