New toy! (And why California is the wrong shade of green)

[brooksmoses]

Somewhat recently, I was poking at various slide/film scanners on eBay, and came across a Nikon Coolscan II that was advertised as "not tested, makes funny noise on power-up". And, being a bit overconfident in my repair skills if it indeed had something messed up internally, I bought it. It turns out that it does, indeed, make a horribly loud clattery noise at the end of its power-up proceedure. This, according to the helpful regulars on comp.periphs.scanners, is what the autofocus mechanism normally sounds like. And, when I finally got it hooked up and found a slide to test it with (since it didn't come with the film adaptor), it does indeed work perfectly well.

So I ordered a film adaptor for it (which turned out to cost twice as much as the scanner itself cost), and finally got to try that out this evening.

I was quite pleasantly surprised by the results -- and reminded that there's still a lot of difference between the quality of my digital camera and a comparably-priced 35mm SLR, even though the resolution is nearly comparable. Part of it is the difference between optics that weigh a quarter-pound, and optics that weigh a quarter-ounce; the focus is sharper, and in the better photos everything in the image is in sharp focus down to the pixel level -- and it's an 8 megapixel image. But a large part of the difference is in the colors; I finally have an image that shows what suzimoses means when she says California is the wrong shade of green.



That's just a random patch of woods behind an abandoned garage, in the middle of June after a few rainy days. It's not something exceptionally green, either; everywhere that has plants is nearly that color, everywhere you look. (Even the side of the old garbage truck is turning a bit green in spots.) I haven't pushed the saturation on the scanner, either; that's actually toned down slightly, since I had to shift the picture slightly magenta to white-balance it.

That is what the "right shade of green" looks like.

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

So the right shade of green is kind of halfway between emerald and chartreuse?

I think I know what you're objecting to -- California is every color of green except that. It's grey green, it's forest green, it's black green, it's viridian, it's blue green, it's lichen green, it's brownish, yellowish, pale and dark green.

But, for those of us who grew up with it, that is the right shade of green.

In my scrapbook I've put more pictures of walking with the dog in the winter, all green. (I'm about to put even more, including a shot of a mountain lion warning sign from a city park: it will be "DeLaveaga" under "Fecundity")

[brooksmoses]

So the right shade of green is kind of halfway between emerald and chartreuse?

That's a beautiful way of describing it. (As well as being correct, I think.) California does get it, occasionally; I've seen it in new grass. But here it's tiny accents, whereas where I grew up it pervades the world; there's a stretch of road on the way out from my parents' house, where the trees are tall enough to arch completely together overhead, and when the sun is out after rainfall, it becomes a tunnel of glowing between-emerald-and-chartreuse green, right at the edge of the color wheel.

But, for those of us who grew up with it, that is the right shade of green.

Oh, certainly. The phrase is mostly a running joke of sorts -- when suzimoses first moved out here and was going through a bout of homesickness, she complained that there wasn't any green. I pointed out lots of green things, and she realized that it wasn't that she was missing green, so much as missing this particular shade of green, and so the complaint changed to "It's the wrong shade of green", and it sort of stuck as a synecdoche for feelings of missing home.

[keshwyn]

Whereas my mother (who grew up in a desert-area where the green is much similar to California's) used to complain that the East Coast was -too- green. :)

I know exactly what suzimoses means.

[brooksmoses]

I meant to add: If you mean online scrapbook, I'd definitely like to see the pictures, but I don't think I have a link.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

here it is! (http://pics.livejournal.com/ritaxis/gallery/0000b8d8)

[oldsma.livejournal.com]

I've been saying that Maryland is the wrong shade of green ever since I moved out here. Lots and lots of this glowing stuff, but none of the right greens.

MAO

[leback.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Looks like home. :-)