Currumbin Virtual Photowalk

Continuing on from our Authentic Aussie Experience with Tif and Andy, we all met up with Michael who was hosting a Google+ Virtual Photowalk™.

The Virtual Photowalk is actually a very cool concept. Essentially, some people on Google+ decided to help show the world to people who can’t see it, by bringing them virtually, in Hangouts (HERE is a neat little CBS news clip about it).

Michael’s setup is pretty darn cool – he has a big, fancy video camera, with a smartphone mounted in, and mobile internet connection, so the feed from the video was streaming in the Hangout, where several people from around the world could watch, and the whole thing was recorded so it can be watched later. Check it out HERE

Being a photowalk, we did, of course, take a lot of photos (You can see the full album of our adventures (HERE)

As did Littletree

(and yes, this is a photo of me taking a photo of her taking a photo of me…)

We arrived in time for the morning feeding of the Rainbow Lorikeets

And then it was right off to the Koalas,

Because both Littletree and Tif were super excited to cuddle koalas – this is Abby

We tried to feed Tif and Littletree to a croc

But failing that, we fed kangaroos

We saw cassowaries (because Angry Birds in Australia are really angry – do not mess with Aussies)

 

We saw the cutest little ginger tree kangaroos

We rode the train

And did I mention we took lots of photos…

We spent a lot of time on our phones checking out Google+,

posting, sharing, chatting, and in general engaging with thousands of people, and joining in the hangouts, so it felt like we had the whole world of all our friends with us

So much awesome!

Especially the awesome friends right here

And we took lots of photos.

Then, all tuckered out from walking around… and taking so many pictures, we retired to the beach for an awesome brunch

Fun times! And of course, entirely educational, especially the part where Littletree challenged Tif to a Big Bang Theory quote-off.

Sunflowers

Littletree and I spent an afternoon playing in a big flower field just at the bottom of the hill we live on. It's all beautiful big yellow flowers, which made for a great scene to try out my new camera - so this is more of a photoblog post :)

 

Kookaburra

The day after I got my new camera, I had a great opportunity to try out the zoom - standing on our balcony we saw a kookaburra swoop down and snatch up a mouse. It flew up to a tree at the bottom of the garden, and sat on a branch with it for a while, posing.

Well, it's hard to see with the wide angle lens, but zooming in 5x:

And then zooming in all the way (with the digital zoom):

It was very cool to watch how it killed the mouse by bashing it on the branch and shaking it around.

Littletree was fascinated. And I'm very impressed with my new zoom :)

New Camera!!!

I bought a new camera! Woohoo!

After days and days of searching online and reading reviews and searching for prices, I finally found one I was happy with.

Originally I'd wanted to get another Exilim, like my old one, which I loved, but it's not a common brand, and I was finding it really hard to get a good one. I did end up buying a model that I was okay with for a really good price, but annoyingly, the company contacted me the next day saying they only had that model in magenta. ugh. At least they contacted me, and gave me an instant refund, so I'm happy with that.

Lots of the cameras I looked at had some problem with them, but finally I found one that was within my price range (sort of - a little more, but okay), and small enough (roughly the same size as my old itty bitty camera), with a 5x optical zoom.

The Panasonic Lumix FS15. All the reviews I found on it were pretty rave for its class and so far I'm happy with it.

The first test shot (poor Littletree got knocked down by another kid on a bicycle and scraped her face on the pavement) :

The quality of photos compared to my old camera is amazing - I can't believe I ever thought my old camera was good. LOL here you can see them side by side - (I found that by jamming a toothpick into the battery slot of the old one it will turn on):

You can see the difference - new camera has way nicer wide angle, and clearer colours, sharper focus. And the best part about the new one is it doesn't require a toothpick and a little luck to turn on, and the zoom doesn't get stuck :)

I've been taking some great pics, but mostly I'm just messing around with the new features. It has some great ones, but also some funny ones I probably wont ever use, like these "cute" frames (that Littletree likes)

It does really nice macro (well nice for an ultra-compact point-and-shoot) here's a close-up of Littletree's running shoe:

And a tiny little cat figurine:

No doubt I'll have lots of silly photo posts in the next while. :)