Well Done Good and Faithful Servant....

My beloved Nikon Coolpix S8000 has broken down. It survived being run over by a car and being ricocheted across a parking lot into a flower pot in July so it was a bit dented and scraped but it worked fine until a casual walk on the beach  on Galiano Island. I took a few shots and then it simply blackened it's screen and went into rigor mortis. My Samsung Galaxy Tab is a good substitute but a bit awkward for carrying on a craggy beach. My scanner is an even poorer substitute as you can see from these images.
The Nikon has taken shots that have been used in this blog, printed out as art cards, submitted for juries and even used for book publication - it's been a good friend. A repair isn't economical so the search for a new camera begins. Some newer models can bump up the zoom from 10x to 20x which will be nice for shoreline whale watching and an upcoming trip to Australia. Wider lenses are a nice addition too, especially with some close up photos of tall pieces. Samsung has wifi, very tempting to get rid of the wires but  I need to research the photo quality. 
I'll reinstate my Consumer Reports subscription, head over the the PCMag and CNet sites and start researching for the new purchase!