Camera manufacturers including Canon, Pentax, and Fujifilm will show new digital SLRs for professional photographers at the PMA07 show in Las Vegas next month. The new models balance traditional and advanced features to retain existing customers and tempt new ones.

Fujifilm, meanwhile, will show the FinePix S5 Pro, which begins shipping this month. The digital SLR has a 12.34 megapixel image sensor: half the pixels respond best to low light levels, the other half to stronger light, a system that captures images with a wider dynamic range, the company said.

Got a great photo of a fuzzy, furry or feathered friend?

The Oregon Humane Society is looking for great pictures of cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, horses and other pets for its 17th annual Fuzzy, Furry and Feathered Friends Photo Contest. The contest is open until May 31, 2008. Winners will see photos of their pets published in the full-color OHS Magazine and will also receive great prizes from Pro Photo Supply and Canon. Prizes will be awarded for the best photos in the following categories: Top Dog, Top Cat, Top Other Animal (rabbit, bird, etc.), Funniest photo, Child with Pet, Me & My Pet, Editor’s Choice, and Grand Prize. "Me & My Pet" is a new category for 2008, and focuses on adults posing with their favorite furry or feathered friend.

The Grand Prize winner will receive a Canon Rebel XSi Digital SLR Camera with 18-55mm lens.

What the heck is the difference among all those Canon ELPHs anyway?

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm a big fan of Canon's Digital ELPH series, but I can't tell you how many times friends have called me from Best Buy in a state of confusion about which one to buy. It's no wonder. Stop into any electronics store today and you'll find a slew of ELPH models and they all look pretty similar to the untrained eye. So here's a quick primer on what's what, broken down by resolution (since for better or for worse, that's how most people seem to shop for cameras). For comparison's sake, I included current pricing from Amazon.com.

Canon PowerShot SD950 IS ($340) - released August 2007: This is Canon's current top-of-the-line model (successor to last year's SD900 which you'll still find in some stores). It sports a sleek, rugged titanium body, 3.7x optical zoom lens (36- to 133mm), an Optical Image Stabilizer, Canon's latest face-detection autofocus technology, in-camera red-eye correction, and like all the current ELPHs, uses Canon's top-end DIGIC III image processor.

Adviser: Shooter was a good student

As a junior, he was a peer helper. As a sophomore, he was on the chess team and a supporter of the fine arts program. "Fine arts was a way to escape reality, and at the same time they gave you new goals to reach," he was quoted in his sophomore yearbook. Catherine Manske of Palatine graduated a year ahead of Kazmierczak but said she hung out with him frequently in the two years they were on band together. She played flute while he was a tenor saxophonist. "Neither one of us were that good, so we would talk a lot. He liked to hang out with the older kids," Manske said. "He was one of the nicest kids at the school and really normal. I don't think he was on any medication when I knew him." She remembered one quirky thing. He signed her 1997 yearbook with "don't hit any old ladies crossing the road." "We thought that was kind of weird," said Manske, who graduated with Kazmierczak's sister.

Rants + Raves

Write a tough story about Apple and the Macolytes will attack. We learned as much from our November issue, in which we dinged the ROKR handset from Apple, Motorola, and Cingular. "Apple doesn't call this the phone of the future," ranted one loyalist. "Blaming Apple for this crappy phone is just pedestrian Apple bashing at its worst." Hey, when Steve Jobs trots out something on a giant videoscreen, it's fair game. Other grumps took issue with a quote we attributed to Mark Twain: "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." Wrote one aspiring fact-checker, "This remark was actually made by his neighbor and good friend Charles Dudley Warner." Actually, Warner did say it, but it's believed he was merely quoting his pal Twain. Now, about that cold winter he spent one summer in San Francisco …

The Drama Principle

Which makes the White House failure to close the door on a veto all the more suspicious. ... P.S.: I'd say the weak response from the White House itself outweighs the earlier response from Patrick Ruffini of the RNC, which contains the magic sentence but appears to be relying on the ambiguous, weasely Bush CNN interview. But you make the call. ... P.P.S.: It seems clear, though, that the 10-day pocket veto clock hasn't started ticking yet. ... P.P.P.S.: See Captain Ed, who's convinced Bush is going to sign. ...

That signing ceremony he held last Wednesday in Arizona, it turns out, was only for a Homeland Security appropriations bill that included "$1.2 billion for border fencing." It wasn't the Secure Fence Act.

Canon 40D Review

The test lab over at our review partner Digital Trends published a review of the Canon 40D Review SLR Camera. The Canon EOS 40D scored an Editor's Choice Award.

Quote from the review: "Late last year Canon released the EOS 40D, a 10-megapixel D-SLR targeted to serious photographers since it costs north of $1,000 USD for the body alone. Add a few lenses and accessories, the next thing you know youve hit $2K.
This camera is targeted for anyone looking at the older 10-megapixel Nikon D80 or the newer 12.2MP Sony alpha DSLR-A700, a camera I liked a great deal. In other words, its for those more than willing to go beyond Auto and make the most of a sophisticated imaging capture device (a.k.a camera)."
Read the full Canon 40D Review.