Archiver
Top Veteran
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
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.
www.dpreview.com
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.
Flinder St by Night by Archiver, on Flickr
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.
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.
Station by Archiver, on Flickr
www.flickr.com
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.
Handheld - can you believe it??? by Archiver, on Flickr

Canon PowerShot S45 Review
A year after I reviewed the PowerShot S40 I'm here reviewing a camera which to all intents and purposes looks identical to that camera. The PowerShot S45 has the same case, lens, CCD sensor, LCD, control layout etc. as the S40. However what has changed significantly are the internals of the camera. This is immediately noticeable upon first using the camera with its modified menu layout and new FUNC button for quick control of photographic settings such as exposure compensation, white balance, IS

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.
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.
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.

Melbourne PMA 2007 Flickr Exhibition
These were my entries for the 2007 Photographic Marketing Association Show, held in Melbourne. (2024 02 16 - Glynn Alexander www.flickr.com/photos/r1user put out a call on the Melbourne flickr group, asking for members to submit images that would be displayed on LCD screens in the foyer of the Melbourne Exhibition Building during the 2007 PMA tradeshow. It was rather thrilling to see my work publicly displayed for the first time. Thank you to Glynn for the opportunity all those years ago.)
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.