[HELP] How to do this or...

my mom is not well and doing some cleaning i came across an old No. 1A Pocket Kodak 1926-1931

http://westfordcomp.co​m …ics/autographic​/index.htm

i love the style of old pics it takes...

i want to perhaps get into taking pics that have that old b&w classic loook, i just love it!

some reading the #116 film for the camera was discontinued in 84' so i likely wont be able to buy or use this old classic...

What are my options for getting pics to have that old classic look? (current gear is a 20D.)

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I'm not totally sure about the techniques to use. It will definitely be in PP. Start with the conversion into B&W. That will be about all that is needed for the second picture. Just play with the conversion settings to get the desired effect.

For the first picture you probably will have to add some noise. You may also want to experiment with adding vignetting (the darker ring around the perimeter). You will also want to desaturate the colors during the conversion.

Hope this helps. Eric

Your camera can produce B&W images if you make some setup changes. However, it is generally considered far better to shoot in color and use post-processing to convert to a B&W image. The reason for this is fairly simple.

With B&W photography, one generally uses colored filters to control contrast between subject items of various colors. For example, an orange or red filter can be used to darken blue skies against the white clouds and other elements in the photo. When you do this, though, you have only one chance to get it right unless the subject is static and you can try several shots with different exposure settings and possibly different filters.

With post processing using a color origianl (best done from a RAW original image file), you can make several different B&W images from the one original. Each can have different properties dialed in while you experiment with making the best possible B&W image.

Does this make sense?

makes sense, most of my B&W images look too clean and crisp :d i guess now instead of trying to clean up my images, i need to make em look a little dirty to give it that "taken with a 1920's camer" look/

If you really really want to use that old film camera and you have two 116 spools available, you can respool 120 film onto the 116 spools. This article at Camerapedia has a number of links, including one titled "Using 120 in a No. 1-A Folding Pocket Kodak Special".

As for getting that "old" look from digital, a few tips:

• Most old B&W film was orthochromatic. That means that it's not sensitive to reds (remember the red window?), so use a channel mixer setting with zero red.
  
• Some old B&W file was monochromatic. That means that it's only sensitive to blues, so just use the blue channel to simulate those films.
  
• Pure black and pure white were rarely achieved. Use the Levels control to reduce the output range.
  
• Sharpness was quite poor by today's standards. Apply some Gaussian blur.
  
• Scratches and spots were almost unavoidable.
  
• Corners tended to be dark.
  
• Relatively short focal lengths and infinity focus were the general rule.
  

This is the closest I can get, you would have to add your own flaws if you wanted them. It was done in PSP X2

some great tips there, give me something to try one of these nights! Just looking through old pics now, finding old pics of my mom, i LOVE the look and feel of the older images!!

this is my mom in 1972, i love the pic nd how it feels and looks over all has become my fav pic of all time i have ever seen.

You might be able to get it modified to take modern medium format film, as well as getting it gorgeously cleaned and restored.

Send it to this guy, who is the guru of folding cameras:

http://www.certo6.com

great link!

being 27 i have told some people about this and they seem suprised i am now more interested in older stuff and getting more vintage photogrpahs then high end stuff, i love modern stuff, but now i really want to be able to master in some way this older look of classic film cameras!! and so if i can get to use them, i think it could help alot!

Old stuff is great, I had that same impulse as you a couple years ago and have found that it really suits me. There are some films that really have that older look, especially Ilford's HP5+ and FP4+, and Kodak's PlusX and TriX. They're not soft, and they're certainly not orthochromatic like the really old films -- they're panchromatic, so you can do the same things with them that Ansel Adams did (he was the singular master of panchromatic photography). But they have ridiculous dynamic range (you can overexpose by 6 stops and get nearly perfect prints), and they hold highlight detail just beautifully.

^^ interesting, been very busy lately, my mother passed away in Dec after being ill, and i am working on a site for family and friend when i have time, and i really want to learn to do the "look" above, it just leaves so much to question about the image... insetad of plain old color normal pic.