Canon PowerShot S45

Opinion: I have used my Canon PShot s45 for 10 days now and have about 600 pics as experience. Pros:I am pleased of the camera and like its menu system and excelent quality of the monitor and the picas. The Camera gives a feeling of good engineering and the level of digital cameras takes at clear step ahead. Cons: Two things, the menu button is far to small with 4 directions + press = 5 functions. Its almost impossible to select without tilting the button in any direction. The second is the lid for the lens, its NOT the same quality and feeling as the rest of the camera. Its anoying because I am so close to give the camera a VERY high recommendation if it was not for this.

Opinion: Now, that I have the S45 I’m more then happy that I switched from S40. For my taste, the handling has become a lot easier and already in the first half hour I detected some VERY need new Features.
LCD-review: S40 had two zoom in steps, S45 has ten of them. That makes it a lot easier to decide whether the just taken picture is in focus.
Focus and Sharpness: My pictures taken with S40 were often out of focus, probably a lack of knowledge on my side, but I have improved with the new S45. It does cover my deficiency. The few pictures I made, seem more crisp. My pictures where often over exposed and showed burned out spots, this has improved a lot too. Though on one picture (branches against bright sky) I detected some chromatic aberration.
Handling: has become a lot easier. I had to turn my S40 often back to factorypreset because I confused myself with changing functions in some of the 12 picturecapture-modes. In S45 all the changes are shown on the LCD and easy to detect.
Time-lapse recording : is now an incamera function!! GREAT
Handy: Very handy is the auto picturerturning process. I use to turn my camera back and forth. It’s not a big deal to turn them by hand, but not a very exciting task anyway.
There are many more goodies, but I’m too much of an amateur to state anything about them.

Opinion: I have received several e-mails from different S45 pontential buyers asking where did I bought my S45 in Hong Kong. Actually I thought they may visit HK in the near future. In HK the price for S45 in big chain stores such as Broadway and Fortress is around HK$4,500 which comes with local warranty. Also you may bought S45 from local electronics stores in which S45 costs around HK$4000 to $4100. which also comes with local warranty. But assume you buy S45 and bring it to other countries you dont need the HK warranty and you may buy non-parallel goods it means that the product is not come from Canon approved HK agents. It usually come from Japan. In this case S45 costs only HK$3,600 in some local stores. People may find more 20 to 30 such stores in Mon Kok. Be carefully, some stores' target are travellers. They sells electronics products very expensive. If the sales person said the S45 is out of stock and promote another products, leave the shop immediately.

Opinion: I just switched from my old Casio 2900 to my new S45 for about HK$3700 ( US$475 ). The size is good compared with other features enriched DCs. After using the S45 for 10 days, I found that all the features I wanted and unwanted are embedded into the S45. The image quality is excellent excepts for those pictures taking at night with the ISO setting in 400. Noise is found but is acceptable.