about cahoonah
cahoonah is a name that just sounds right for me and has no particular meaning at all.
about this place
I have always been a curious person and was addicted to technology at an early age, so it was a logical step to try out the WWW. This website has been around since 2006 and has gone through a few revisions. At first everything ran on Pixelpost, then Typo 3 and for several years now on WordPress. As I get older I am becoming more and more of a pure user and I want things to work without a lot of effort and fiddling so that I have more time for the important things in life. If… don’t be surprised if everything doesn’t run smoothly here – I have better things to do. 😉
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.
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 for 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? This off course renders me as bad photographer in parts. There is always room to improve, but not missing the shot or have to throw it away because of some limitations, gives me the feedback to cary on and improve on every aspect.
FYI: 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!
about equipment
Equipment seems to be the most important thing in many places today and the discussions about digital vs. analogue have slowly died down. For my part, I am happy about new technology, but I also see the advantage of a simpler, more analogue world. Many new devices are overdone! New cameras with new functions that – thanks to AI and fast processors – give people a good hand, or put them in the shade completely. I’m a little jealous here, because a modern camera with 60 fps and automatic eye tracking would be nice, but the budget is too small. 😉 I also think that you can learn much better with old, more limited resources. Goethe coined the term “velociferic” and yes, I’m sometimes very tired of all the updates, new features and constant maintenance that comes with this brave new world. The feature creature has modern corporations completely in its grip and it seems to me that things are getting faster and faster and a certain point each update makes your live a lot complicated.
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 could  now crop the image more – giving me more freedom composition wise without loosing too much resolution.
So here’s what I got:
Canon IXUS (the first one)
Canon S50 + underwater body
Nikon D50 (now my backup on rugged tours where I don’t dare to take the D90) – my Kids start out with this one now
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 EX 105 mm F/2.8 MF HSM DG EX OS AF
Sigma 150-500mm F5,0-6,3 DG OS HSM – my primary lens that is kinda married to my D7200 body 😉
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…
