Hi Again,

Here are the photos for this month.

A few problems this month, the quality of the photos has dropped markedly from the 12th to the 18th.

This is due to the fact that on the 11th my camera & I were unceremoniously dumped onto the rocks in the middle of the beach by a large rogue wave, I came out with only bruising, cuts & a severely dented ego; my camera however just doesn't take very well to diving in salt water & has since demised & gone to the great recycle bin in the sky.

Basically it means my eventual purchase of its replacement has had to be brought forward in a hurry.

It has taken just on 51000 photos at the beach alone & most photos on my computer have come from it; the properties of the "My Pictures" folder shows 115,300 images, so it has had a good innings as they say.

I was able to use an old 3.2Mp Konica in its place, but its capabilities are severely restrictive, only 3x zoom & very limited ISO sensitivity so low light shooting is very grainy.

Used the Konica from 12th to 18th & then my daughter-in-law lent me her Lumix FZ8, which I used from the 19th to 30th, when my new camera arrived.

Ok, what about the new camera;  WELL, I have been researching at great lengths on all sites I could find on the internet, forums, blog sites, pro photographers recommendations, manufacturers home pages, & mostly using comparison sites from magazines etc.

Would love to buy a pro unit like the Canon EOS 5D Mark III; but the absolute cheapest price on ebay (from China) is over $2200 just for the body, in Australia more like $3000 & in Coffs Harbour closer to $4000; then have to add several lenses to cover the field I need.

Can't justify $4000 to $5000 just so I can walk the beach, so have decided to go for what they call a "bridge camera".  This is basically half way between the point & shoot units & the pro units, in other words my old camera, so I researched the best unit in this field & it came out to be the replacement model of my old Panasonic Lumix.

Ordered the latest & greatest Lumix "Super-Zoom" (bridge camera), the Panasonic Lumix FZ150:-  12.1 Mp, 24x zoom Leica lens (25mm to 600mm in old 35 language), macro focus to 1cm, and so it goes on;  one beautiful camera. Arrived the 30th so I used it for the last day of the month.

Anyway, back to the beach, there has been varied conditions this month. Sunrise started around 6-48am & finished around 6-28am,so a lot of dark/grainy photos, not bad though as the colours have been dramatic. The sand is slowly coming back to the bottom of the stairs but we have still had some severe weather with large seas & swells taking more of the sand dunes.

Missed the 1st, as I was in Brisbane, also missed the 25th, very early start.

Again not all photos are included, if you would like to see any other of my listed photos just send me a comment & I will try to accommodate.