Canon's PowerShot S45 further blurs the line between semi-professional and keen amateur cameras. Read our Australian evaluation of this exceptional camera.

The S45 has 13 different settings on its shooting mode dial, from auto to custom. Around half the settings are basic matters, such as portrait, landscape and night scene, while the others are more advanced, allowing the photographer to set the aperture and shutter speed. The basic settings are useful for getting good photographs. Novice photographers would probably find much more here than they needed. Experienced photographers, on the other hand, will appreciate the extra control offered by the S45.

Like most digital cameras these days, the PowerShot S45 offers a video capture mode. The quality is good (for this sort of thing) and gives a decent sized picture once transferred to the computer. However, we did encounter some difficulty transferring video files to PC. The automatic download of images that occurs when the camera is connected to the USB port halted as soon as it hit the larger video file. In the end, the only way we could find to transfer images was manually via Windows Explorer.

We were impressed with the ease photos were transferred from camera to computer, though. As indicated, after loading the software (in itself a simple process), connecting the camera to the computer via USB cable will automatically launch a download window that is very easy to manage.

We did have trouble manipulating the camera while it was attached, since we sometimes turned it off which disconnected it as far as the transfer was concerned. This is something that you do learn very quickly not to do.

The PowerShot S45 has a 3x optical zoom, which is pretty impressive and allows you to get up nice and close, without actually getting up nice and close. Speaking of up nice and close, one of the features we liked on this camera was the Macro button, designated by the silhouette of a flower. Pressing the Macro button allows you to take photos at a range of 10 to 50 cm and still keep them in focus.

As a four-megapixel camera, the S45 can take some very clear pictures. The size of the files ranges from just under 600 KB to over 1.2 MB.

The other buttons ranged around the camera allow the photographer to adjust the White Balance, change the light metering systems, go to manual focus and scroll through the menu and display options. There is also a microphone button, which allows you to add audio labels to pictures. You can add as many labels as you want, up to a combined total of 60 secs. It sounds somewhat superfluous, but we found it did permit us to remember exactly what it was we were taking a picture of well after the event.

Navigating around the menus of the camera is achieved through a five-way arrow device. While this allows for simple navigation, we did find it hard to manoeuvre the device to where we wanted the cursor to go. Often when we tried to press it in (to choose a particular option) it would move to the side instead. We don't think this will improve with experience, but it didn't strike us as being a major negative against the camera as much as a minor inconvenience.

We were very impressed with the battery life of the PowerShot S45, since we charged it once and it lasted for several shooting sessions. Quite often the battery of a camera will run out before the memory does, but we didn't find that to be the case with the PowerShot S45.

All in all, the PowerShot S45 is a good camera for experienced photographers. Anyone seeking to expand their photographic experience would also be well served, but for the simple point and click crowd it's definitively overkill.

PowerShot S45
Company: Canon Australia
Price: AU$1399
Distributor:  Selected Resellers
Phone:  1800 021 167

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