Is it me or do some people think film collectors are colour blind or stupid.A film on eBay listed with photos shows the films colour has turned but the description says good colour.The camera used to take the pictures does not show the true colours of the film according to the seller.Well I was under the impression the camera never lies......what a load of bo..o..s the film is red.Why bother to list a film with photos and then give a different description.Is this becoming more prevalent?
Ok rant over

I always laugh at the ones the sellers describe as acceptable Gwyn. Acceptable to who???

Subjective at best and to most i know, including myself, nothing like our ideas of "acceptable!"

Well, errr, hehe
On my reviews you may spot a few where i state that the images i take appear a lot more red or faded than they actually are, while i do use a cheapo camera for the purpose some of the images i take appear to be red rather and dont seem to have any colour in them at all yet the image on the screen is much better and definatly more colourful. In a lay mans terms im saying that the camera does make a faded film look much worse than it is. Obviously as a collector i try to tell the truth about any films i sell, the "acceptable" term is an annoying thing that you have to select from a drop down box which gives you excellent, very good,good or acceptable, (i think).

However, i know what your saying as there are dickheads on there with red films and scratches and do call it acceptable. If its red its red, starting to fade or slight faded is in my view fading. Red is faded, or, bollocks'd
I am viewing our 16mm print of Waterloo at present, this was an interesting one, the description was, some Eastman colour shift, (but he described the colours quite well), but he also said the print is in near mint condition. And he has a lot of positive feedback. However,
Upon opening it, i noticed 4 reels of film but not one in a can, (my fault for not asking i guess).
The film was filthy, and two reels were covered in a white powder, upon inspection it was also full of little bits of silver tape which when i asked on the other channel was told this was advert break marks so its an ex TV print. I had to work though all the reels and get them off as they cover sprocket holes, when i cleaned it the crap that came off was unbelievable. But it did clean up good and his screenshots were in fact honest. It just took a lot of work to get it there. The description should have been Good not very good, you certainly do have to be careful and not forget to ask the questions, BTW, it does have a splice at every ad break, fortunately they are professional splices so are very good, it could have been much worse. As it happens the whole thing including post from the states and import rip off tax was only £124 so for a two hour feature compare with some 80s super 8 features is a bargain and of course not available on 8. Once i have viewed the whole film i will put up a review but trying to get the images as i see them is not easy with the camera i use. To be perfectly honest i prefer to be concentrating on watching the movie rather than taking pictures so i dont actualy think of what i am taking, i just take pot luck.

Cameras must function for different kinds of light sources. Good old bulbs will make a red shifted light. Fluorescent light will give blue shifted light. What we consider correct light is the sun light and light sources with the same color balancing. The human eye is fabulous for adjusting to the different light sources.

All cameras must either be told which kind of light source it has, or make a guess of the correct white balance according to the current light hitting the sensor. Therefore it is possible to get the wrong white balance with a modern camera too even though they often do a very good job.

Those little silver bits on the films are on a few of mine too, but no splices. I remember a projector reviewed in Movie Maker`a pedestal type that took 6000ft reels. This it said could operate automatically by using silver strips on the edge of the film. One other little thing with TV prints, if they had just a couple of swear words in them a piece of blooping tape was place on the soundtrack to cover the word up. Much better idea than an ITV screening of The Wild Geese when Roger Moore's voice changes.