About

about cahoonah

cahoonah.com has been on my mind for quite some time. First there was the name, which actually has no meaning at all, despite that I like how it sounds. Looking it up on the net revealed, that hawaiian priests are called kahuna. Some of you might know the old cahoonah circle server on hotline… well that was also me. Now it is the name of my site and I consider it to stand for all that I like.

about this place

I had to take a close look on typo3 at work and liked it. A good friend of mine – Alex from mobileread.com – offered me some webspace with a Typo3 on it. Not quite sure what to do with it, I set up a blog, and another blog and a project page and some things more. Not content with all of it, I switched to a photoblog and thanks to Michiel Roos and his photoblog plugin, it went reality. After half a year of working with Typo3 and my blog, I still had clitches that I couldn’t fix. Too complex, too much server stuff to take into consideration… I spent more time fixing my template, than actually go out and take pictures. Finally I came across Pixelpost – half way back to basic HTML editign, but therefore not such a blown up beast as Typo3.. in short: it fits alle my needs. As soon, as the days get shorter again, I will probably set up a regulare blog, for my other projects… you’ll see.

update 2013

Pixelpost was a very neat software… free, easy to use and somehow easy to hack, as the 3000+ spam comments each week showed. Defensio did not work properly and with all this crap below my pictures and flags about testing how to inject some shit into my database I finally had to jump ships.
Most of the data I could move over with this PixelPost to WordPress Exporter but a lot of things need to be done manually… this will take some time. Sad part so far: the new blog has more space for the images and the old ones transferred over are not the highres… I would need to replace them all, one by one. If I find the time I will do this. So far you will find the old pictures somehow looking misplaced within this layout; the newer ones will hopefully look right. Some of the comments got swept away with me cleaning this mess by hand, but there weren’t much anyway.

about equipment

Equipment seems to be essential part of todays digital photography. German writer and poet Goethe created the word “velociferich”. Even when he was living about 250 years ago, he noticed that mankind tends to do everything faster and faster, better and better, more efficient and much more closer to the devil of beeing reluctant.

Today you can go out and buy a new camera with the latest features and better resolution every couple of weeks; but will this new piece of hightech let you take better pictures? Probably. But we already came a long way. Think of all those great photographers from the past 50 years. They had cameras that few of us might even get to work nowadays and they did much better pictures than most of us will do. So what!

For myself, I found that it is more important to really go out and take pictures, instead getting caught up in this tech-race, buying the latest 12mpx model and heavy lenses. My focus is more on the picture side and the fun of it and that’s what it should all be about, right?

Although I still try to not get cought in this techrace I constantly upgraded my equipment over the last couple of years. This is due to my engagement with photography which became some sort of means to leave all this daily stuff behind and take a look on the beatyful things in life.

You learn that a certain degree of technical equipment gives you a benefit, or better results in the end. I switched to the all new D90 in Dezember 2008. This was a good descision, as I can now crop the image more – giving me more freedom compositionwise without loosing too much resolution.

update 2014

I did a shooting for a good friend of mine and was given a D800 and some lenses over the course of a weekend, two years ago and must admit that this was like going to a new dimension. 36! Megapixel… well, you can crop away two thrid of those images and just reach the 12mpix that my good old D90 had; the noisereduction is far the best, I have seen so far. Left me with a bitter feeling, when I returned to my D90. Now I find myself thinking about new equipment, but with my 1.5 year old daughter around and tons of other things on my mind I hardly find the time to go out an shoot nowadays. The iPhone becomes your best friend, as you have it right at your hand, when you kid does something new. I will return, promissed! The redesign and relaunch of this blog is the first step.

update 2023

As of now my trusty rusty D90 died at the beginning of last year and me and Santa decided it was time to do a little upgrade. Nikon D7200 is the new stallion. About everything has taken a big update. I love the new and faster focus mode, with more focus points, shutter speed and the feature that I did not have on my agenda but that completely changed the way I shoot is Auto-ISO. This is a real game changer, due to software within the cam as well as on computer are getting better and better and AI kicks in to take away the noise that goes with high ISO values. I do use AI vor Sharpening as well. Topaz Laps has just opened this box of Pandora. Shots that tend to end up in the trash bin because being too dark and noisy, turn out to be usable with those tools. Compared to a lens that would compensate this, the prices for the software are manageable and the results – at least for a hobbyist like me – are juste great. Yes, some say it is cheating, but I rather say: the tools got better, so why not use them? Even Ansel Adams did dodge and burn his images to get the most out of it. Big goal – off course – is to have the best shots straight out of camera and that’s what all photographers should aim for… so do I.

So here’s what I got:

Canon S50 + underwater body

Nikon D50 (now my backup on rugged tours where I don’t dare to take the D90)

Nikon D90

Sigma 18-50mm 1:3-5.6 DC D

Tamron 17-35 SP AF Di LD (IF) 1:2,8-4

Nikon AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-200 mm 1:3,5-5,6G IF-ED

Nikon AF-S 70-300 1:45-5.6 G

Sigma 135-400mm F4,5-5,6 DG Apo (will sell this soon)

Sigma 150-500mm F5,0-6,3 DG OS HSM
Manfrotto tripod with 3D head
Slingshot AW 300 (third in a row, as they use to fall appart after one year. Lowepro always exchanged it on warranty basis, which is great!)
LowePro Flipside
Nation Geographic Rucksack midsize

couple of Cokins ND and gradient filters. < one tiny grain of sand sneaked into the box and ruined them.

about me

name: Falk,
living: Offenbeach (am Meer), Germany

Considering my surrounding as jungle. There will be very much to explore and very much to discover.

It’s a jungle out there…

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