I Agree. The Weather Is Nuts

wtnh pkng lot snow

Bill Koczocik posted the photo above to Facebook. He didn’t say where, but I recognize the Channel 8 parking lot. Not much in that scene has changed over the last thirty years. Well, except that damn snow.

For those counting at home, Connecticut DOT’s plows have been on the road 19 separate times this season!

Over 29″ of snow at Bridgeport in February alone! Hartford’s at 23″.

Everything’s topsy turvy this season. The polar vortex event. Heavy snow this week in Northern Japan. Historic floods on the Thames and along the coast in Britain.

I look back and wonder how I operated in that? After all, before Connecticut I lived in Buffalo!

But you do.

You play the hand you’re dealt. Is there really a choice?

In The Studio: Music By Bill Koczocik

Bill is younger than me, but old enough to be considered a grown-up. He’s an accomplished purveyor of all things Polish–especially food.

My office at work is in the studio. It’s actually a cool place because there’s a lot of action there during newscasts.

I share my space with the gentlemen of the floor. We’ve had women camera ops and floor directors–none at the moment. Tonight Bill Koczocik was running the floor.

Bill is younger than me, but old enough to be considered a grown-up. He’s an accomplished purveyor of all things Polish–especially food.

A newscast is packed with different stories every night yet runs in a predictable pattern. Visitors are surprised how casual we are. In the midst of this Bill glides three robotic cameras from place to place, panning, zooming, tilting and focusing all by remote control.

In the studio Bill is also in charge of the music.

I’m not talking about music on the TV. Bill brings in his iPod and hooks it to a nice Fender amp/speaker system right next to his desk. In our lulls through the night he plays the eclectic.

Bill’s music knows no bounds. There is no genre of popular music he doesn’t play.

It is because of Bill I’ve thrown away my prejudices and embraced Amy Winehouse. He often plays Valerie by Amy and Mark Ronson. It brings down the house.

I have personally witnessed people you’d recognize instantly (and whom I won’t rat out) rocking out in the studio as Winehouse sings.

Bill is kind because he lets me karaoke! He’ll play some old Sinatra standard or sixties hit and I’ll sing along loudly… too loudly. Though I only know 60% of the words he let’s me sing without grousing.

People sometimes walk into the studio while the concert is in progress. They look at us like we’re a little weird.

Maybe we are.

So?

Shooting Flowers With Bill Koczocik’s Lens

At f/2.8 the lens doesn’t need a lot of light, however the focus at that aperture was much more critical than I expected. I have little experience with this grade of lens.

bee-on-a-flower-across-the-street.jpg

bee-on-a-yellow-flower-across-the-street.jpg

single-black-eye-susan.jpg

I talk about cameras to anyone who will listen. How to shoot. What to shoot. Where to shoot. I do as much listening as talking. There’s a lot of good info to be gleaned.

Last week one one of the guys I talk cameras with in the studio, Bill Koczocik, brought in a lens for me to try. It’s a Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8. That means it’s a fast midrange zoom.

The word “fast” when referring to lenses means less light is needed and the depth-of-field (distance range from the lens which is in focus) can be very shallow. Fast lenses are usually sharper and heavier too. Guilty on both counts.

I threw the lens on the camera this afternoon and walked toward the brook. Though this little river flows year-round this is its low point–especially after a week without rain. The smaller the brook or stream the more it reacts to instantaneous weather with extremely variable flow rates.

With little near the stream bed but exposed rocks I concentrated on the last of the perennials still in bloom (and then only barely).

Here’s what I found. As I expected this lens is in a strange, not wide enough/not long enough, zone for my camera.

Bill, whose Canon has a full size sensor, sees totally different images from this very same lens. On his camera the field-of-view is much wider.

At f/2.8 the lens doesn’t need a lot of light, however the focus at that aperture was much more critical than I expected. I have little experience with this grade of lens.