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Canon Canon S45 Redux

Archiver

Top Veteran
Back in the mists of 2002, almost 22 years ago as of now, Canon released the S45, a silver brick of a compact camera that was my entry into digital photography. Boasting a huge 4mp sensor and 35-105mm equivalent zoom, the S45 was a stylish, classy addition to Canon's lineup.


As was always the case with Canon's cameras in those days, the jpegs were crisp and clean, with natural colours and lots of detail. At the time, I only shot jpeg as memory cards were expensive and raw files were relatively huge. This camera became my constant companion, pushing me into an odyssey of getting on the tram and exploring Melbourne as if I had never seen it before. And indeed, until getting a digital camera, there was much of Melbourne I had not seen, but the curiosity borne of photography got me out there.

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Flinder St by Night by Archiver, on Flickr

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Chinatown by Night by Archiver, on Flickr

Because digital photography was still relatively new to consumers, I was the first in my social group and family to always have a camera with them. This lead to me capturing anything and everything from dinners and food to nightclubs and landscapes. In the following image, I captured the site of where the major Japanese department store Daimaru had closed in Melbourne Central, and major renovation was underway to replace it. This was captured on a routine outing with a friend - today, everyone has a smartphone and takes photos of everything, but in the early 2000s, this was very rare.

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Melbourne Central Refurbishment by Archiver, on Flickr

It was surprisingly well specced, with the usual scene modes of other cameras, but also with settings like aperture priority, shutter priority, manual shutter/aperture and a Custom setting. I never used any of these, preferring to stick with P Auto and turning off flash. This resulted in many images with motion blur due to the S45 selecting a slow shutter speed. Back then, I had little idea about shutter speed, aperture or ISO, and just carried on as if this was normal. But this lead me to develop very solid hand holding technique to prevent blur.

One of these early photos was entered into a Melbourne Flickr display shown at the Photographic Marketing Association Expo in 2007. It was a real trip to see my photos among many others displayed on smallish LED screens outside the venue.

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Station by Archiver, on Flickr


The S45 had a video feature, but it was terrible. Grainy, jerky 15 frames per second, no stabilization at all. The resolution was a stultifying 320x240, or 160x120 if you were running low on card space. Nevertheless, I shot many video clips with it, and I work with video and still images today. In fact, the S45 was the gateway to where I am now. Even today, I return to many of the same places I took the S45 with later cameras like the Panasonic S5 and G9, taking photos of the same things, and marveling at how far things have come. Thank you, S45.

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Handheld - can you believe it??? by Archiver, on Flickr
 
The Kingdom photo above is of a long-closed Chinese restaurant in what was a shopping square called Tooronga Village. The site was demolished to make way for a new residential and shopping area by the building group Stockland. The following is another image from the S45, taken from the second story window of Kingdom that overlooked the carpark.

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Sunset - lomo effect by Archiver, on Flickr

Being out and about with the S45 allowed me to document everything I did, including cinema visits. This is the old Hoyts Cinema that used to be in Russell Street in Melbourne, demolished in 2014 and replaced with a boutique luxury hotel.

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S45 - Greater Union 2005 by Archiver, on Flickr


Inside the cinema were these toilets. Note the blue light, probably to prevent junkies from shooting up inside.

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Blue light bathroom by Archiver, on Flickr
 
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