Digital Camera Battery Life

[chimaera]

I bought a digital camera recently (my first) which runs off 2 AA batteries. Now in the very short time i've had it i've gone through 2 sets of batteries, from about 15 pictures.

This just seems bizarre to me, i've read about them using up shed loads of power, but i've only had the LCD on for a good 10 minutes in total, and thats stated as the main power drain.

I did have it plugged into my PC for a while (45 mins) but not actually turned on, i can only assume thats what has killed the second set because i only put them in fresh last night and took 5 photo's this evening. When i unplugged it the batteries were red hot, but how could it have been taking power when the camera wasn't turned on or actually doing anything

Is it worth exchanging it for a model with built in rechargable battery like a mobile phone. My phone has a 2mp camera and flash and the battery when taking pictures lasts for ages.

I'm very confused

 

[chimaera]

Could be a defective camera.

What make / model is it?

Its the BenQ C520, bought off OcUK, only a cheapo one but i was expecting not so great picture quality from that, i wouldn't have thought different makes could eat batteries faster than others

I thought that the fact it uses AA's might be a bonus and give longer life.


Edit* i've put back in the first set that died on me a few days ago, and its showing up as 2/3 bars for battery power maybe its just a deffective indicator, always seems to happen after i've unplugged it from the usb, maybe thats affecting it somehow.

 

[chimaera]

Get some rechargable NiMH batteries and a charger. Even a cheap (1300mAH) set of 4 will cost £10 or less. Getting more mAH is better, but if you've only got a cheap camera....

...My thoughts exactly, only a cheap camera, but then again its better than going through packets of Duracells which arn't cheap, especially the M3 ones which i was using, was a good £5 worth of batteries.

Alkalines start off at a higher voltage (~1.6V) but this gradually reduces over their lifetime. When the voltage is too low, the camera ceases to function even though the alkaline battery may still have some charge left. Also digital camera always charge the flash which require a high current drain. With alkaline batteries, even when new, during high current requirements, the voltage will drop, again causing the camera to think the battery has expired.

I think thats exactly my problem, the default settings on the cam were max quality max resolution, and being a cheapo one maybe it just cant handle it. I've dropped down a lot of the settings and turned off auto flash which seemed to think that auto = every photo.

See how it goes, got a trip coming up soon and i'd like some decent snaps.

Thanks guys.

 

[chimaera]

Think i'll definitely get some Ni-MH batteries then.

The thing thats really been puzzling me is that the Duracell M3 batteries have a little indicator strip on the side, which is reading nearly 100% power still in them, yet my camera shuts down with the battery indicator flashing.

Got to be down to power drain, maybe the batteries can't supply enough to the camera.

Oh well, more expense.