Roger Cole
Member
Ive been thinking about this. I wonder if its simply a terminology issue. Suspend for a moment our knowledge that 35mm film comes in rolls. What if the buyer simply understands a different word for a unit of film, for example a cartridge or cassette?
If you think film comes in cartridges (and if your last camera was an APS, that would be a common term), and the seller tells you that theyve put several rolls through the camera and everything is working fine, I could potentially see how someone might think that rolls might be things (rollers, gears, part of the transport mechanism, something that turns?) that need to be replaced on occasion in order for the camera to work properly.
That's one possibility.
In the past, 120 (and 127 etc, paper backed film that came on a spool) was called "roll film" to distinguish it from both sheet film and 35mm.
But everyone I know who shoots or shot 35mm does refer to them as rolls as well, and always did.
Still, APS, 126, 110 all come to mind as film that came in cartridges that a not-so-technical user might not realize were "rolls."