Darren Rowse over at Problogger has a very useful site called, Digital Photography School. It’s become a treasure trove of tips and tricks over the year or so of its existence.

Darren has a lot of experience in digital photography and has virtually made his living from his main digicam blog.

Now he’s offering digital photographers a chance to contribute to DPS directly :

One of the aspects that I’ve been loving about Digital Photography School over the last few months is that among the DPS community are a growing number of digital photographers who have some amazing gifts and abilities when it comes to their photography. What’s more, many of them are willing to share what they know with the rest of us - helping us all to learn more as a community.

If you’re one of these people with some great experience to share I’d love to invite you to do it more formally in the weeks ahead.

Catch the offer here.

Cameratown is reporting the introduction of the new Canon Powershot S5 IS with 12x Optical Zoom and Optical Image Stabilization.

Canon Powershot S5 IS

“Canon has introduced the new Powershot S5 IS, which will replace the Powershot S3 IS in Canon’s line-up.

“The S5 IS offers a huge 12x (36-432mm equivalent) optical zoom lens with optical image stabilization, DIGIC III processor which adds face detection technology, improved auto focus, auto exposure, and flash, a vari-angle 2.5″ LCD screen, and a hot-shoe that will accept Canon’s EX Speedlite flashes. The Powershot S5 IS will also feature an Ultra-Low Dispersion (UD) lens to reduce chromatic abberations at telephoto, and an Ultra-Sonic Motor (USM) for fast, silent zoom operation.

“The Powershot S5 IS will be available in July with an estimated selling price of $499.99 (U.S.).”

Features of the PowerShot S5 IS Digital Camera :

12x optical zoom lens with Ultrasonic Motor (USM) and UD lens
Optical Image Stabilizer
8.0 Megapixel CCD
DIGIC III with Advanced Noise Reduction technology
Face Detection for stills and movies
Red-Eye Correction in playback
2.5″ High Resolution vari-angle LCD
Long-play VGA movies with stereo sound and Photo in Movie
22 Shooting modes including full manual control and 0cn Super Macro
High ISO 1600 and Auto ISO Shift
Compatible with Wide, Tele, and Close-up converter lenses
Compatible with Canon EX Speedlite flashes .

This may seem a boring exercise — depending on where you live, of course. But it needn’t be. What makes a photograph interesting is not necessarily the subject matter itself, but the artifice of the photographer.

Lunchtime in an Elizabethan setting

I have embarked on a project to photograph my home town of Exeter in Devon, England for the whole of the summer, in different lights and from different angles. The whole is designed to convey the gorgeous picture-book quality of this very ancient town.

I’ve found the best way to approach this project is by walking rather than driving around. When you walk, you’re free to divert down any interesting byway that may be impossible in a car.

I’m using a good quality compact digital camera : Advent 8MP, which I can slot onto my belt, plus a spare set of batteries. Nothing more.

Two things I’m looking for : the picturesque and the quirky. Both yield interesting images that others will want to look at. Here’s an example of the picturesque :

The Cathedral Close at Lunchtime — April

The next pic is definitely quirky. It’s Parliament Street, Exeter, which is little more than 2 feet in width. There hasn’t been a parliament in Exeter for a good many centuries, but the Council still keeps it up — just.

Super-slim Parliament Street, Exeter

Why don’t you try photographing your own home town?

You can see the whole of this set of images on our Flickr Photostream.

In an extended review of Adobe Photoshop CS3, CreativePro gives a thumbs up to the latest version of this venerable software.

“Photoshop is now seventeen years old. While the app may not be of legal age to smoke or drink, it is nevertheless a mature piece of software. Yet Adobe hasn’t stopped improving its flagship child. Photoshop CS3 delivers a few head-turning new features, and many fixes to older features. … This upgrade is a no-brainer if you’re a regular Photoshop user. The combination of enhancements to staple features, such as Curves and the Clone Stamp, combined with powerful new additions like the Black and White conversion and Camera Raw enhancements, mean that there’s something for everyone in this update. … Kudos to Adobe for listening to what users need and making simple but effective enhancements. ”