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Charlie's Homepage

Welcome To Charlie's Homepage! This Continues To Be Updated!

Name and Location:

Charlie Wong, West Linn Oregon, USA

Hobbies and Interests:
Photography: This includes darkroom work in color and B&W, camera collecting, camera repairs (amateur only). Formats vary from Minox 9.5mm to 6X6cm.
Orchids. I grow Oncidium, Phalanopsis, and Cymbidium and the occasional Dendrobium and Zygopetellum, having killed the Cattleya.
Astronomy: I occasionally take out my 10 inch reflector telescope to peer at galaxies and nebullae.
My Daughter: The most expensive hobby I have. She is into horses and private schools.
Cars: I have a 1980 300 SD Mercedes, so I'm constantly looking for extra parts....

Now, some pictures....
Note that these have been scanned at 72 dpi and the resulting JPEG images are a bit small. AOL limits how much space members can use. So if things look fuzzy, it's because of this.

This is a Startech camera. It was made in 1960 by Kodak in the USA and distributed by the Lester A Dine Co. The Startech was a 127 roll film camera (this is the same square format used by the "Baby" Rolleiflex). The Startech was a Macro camera. The standard outfit had a fixed F64 pin hole lens which could take pictures from 5 feet to infinity. The camera was intended to be used with lens adapters which slipped over the camera's lens (which, I suspect, was a simple plastic design). With these adapters, the camera could take pictures from 4 to 8 inches and in the 10 to 16inch range. The camera was marketed to dentists (Orthodontists) and physicians and would come with adapters so dental pictures could be taken, or copies of X-Rays could be obtained. A police version was touted as capable of getting pictures of "whole bodies".
I often hear people lament about cheap plastic cameras of today and poor customer relations. Well, the Startech certainly shows these faults existed 40 years ago! The camera in the base form was $34.75 With the dental accessories, it was $63.85. The police kit capable of photographing "whole bodies" as well as documents and 1:1 macro pictures was $93.65. It was essentially, an inexpensive, plastic camera with a pinhole lens! Bear in mind that in 1960 $50 was about $500 today in buying power.
The former owner kept all the papers (I bought everything for $5.00) and accessories together. The brochure promised that even novice users with little experience would "immediately begin taking pictures in beautiful and true color". Those who viewed the results are "mystified by the supurlative color slides or prints."
Well, folded with the brochure is a letter from the company which states, " you can use the camera only with Black and White film". The letter explains that the aperture is too small to use color film and the flash bulbs (M5) designed for use with the camera will not produce enough light for color. Furthermore, even with Black and White film, it is difficult to use the camera outdoors without flash. Nothing in the letter apologizes for the promotional brochure. So there you have it, customer service May, 1960.

This is the Perfex Twenty Two. This was made during WWII by the Camera Corporation of the USA. It has a wide based rangefinder and interchangeable lenses in the unique Perfex mount. The standard lens was an uncoated F3.5/50mm Anastigmat. The Model Fifty Five Perfex (the next model in production) took the color photo of the first Atomic Bomb test in New Mexico which appeared on the cover of Life Magazine. The Perfex had a cloth focal plane shutter with speeds from 1/1250 to 1 second. The Model 22 cost about $37 new. I think the 55 was only a little more expensive.

Existing light, Minox B with Agfa 400 B&W. Torpedo racks on the diesel submarine the Bluefin. This is the submarine seen in the spectacular breech scene in the motion picture, " The Hunt for Red October". It is decommissioned, on display in Portland, Oregon

This is my daughter Kathryn jumping Phoenix. This picture was used in Vol 5, Issue 3 of Portland Magazine. Photo editors want, for movement, the subject going left to right I'm told.

This is Sara who is at the same stable as my daughter jumping her horse, Maddie (I think). I like this shot because you can see the definition of the horse's muscles so well. This was on a bright, overcast day. So many outdoor horse shows take place in full sun, it's very hard to get decent pictures. You don't want to use fill flash when someone is jumping.

This is a recent picture at the Portland Rose Gardens at Washington Park. The scan was done just at 72 dpi for the internet; the print has a lot more texture than you can see here. I like the dark background. The Rose was photographed on the bush.

[IMAGE]

This is an early picture I took, back when I was 16 or so....

This is my dad in the Army Air Corp (now called the Air Force) in WW II. I suppose this was in Europe since that was his Theater of Operations. Pretty amazing he didn't get shot down or crash considering his itinerary. I've heard that if you: Go Navy you will see the world, but in this case the Air Corp was second to none. Note the bars on the sleeve each one is for 6 months of duty overseas. I'm told, I look like my dad.

Mt. Hood National Park. Small Creek 1997.

Some Links:
~ardvarrk at www.diac.comBryant Wetzel's place with Pocket Cam List stuff
WWW Photo ZoneLens test results.
Fargo EnterpriseCamera Repair stuff
AOL Timer Zapper - Popup MonitorSoftware to defeat AOL's timer.
eBay Listings: Photo EquipmentOn line auction.
The Sub ClubSubminiature stuff.
mercedes archiveSearch for Mercedes topics.
Street Maps on the NetHow to get around.

Amphritete's Home PageMy daughter's homepage.

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