Why does it seem like my digital camera uses the battery up so fast?
I have a Kodak EasyShare digital camera and it seems that the battery dead after only about 75 photos. I put brand new Duracell AA batteries in my camera and went to the zoo for 4 hours. I took about 50 pictures before of the low-battery light came on. I always turn off the camera unless I take a picture. It has all the digital cameras this way or something wrong with mine? I saw Duracell specifically for digital cameras, when I was in the store, but realized it's just a marketing ploy to get people to buy those (more expensive) batteries. I should be using batteries specifically for digital cameras? Do they last longer?
Your speculations are correct, your camera eats batteries at a prodigious rate and, unfortunately, is quite niormal to point and shoot cameras. But you have choices. The most power-hungry you have is the LCD. If you off so you can double the performance of the batteries. If you are receiving now fifty pictures, which will give you at least a hundred. The power hungry next thing you have is the flash. Unfortunately, when you need the Flash you need flash, so you can not just turn it off to save power. However I suggest using it wisely. If the subject is always away from the flash will drain completely when it is fired and that will draw a lot of energy to recharge the battery. If you keep your home reasonably close, say about six feet (two meters) or less, you do not drain the flash completely and this will make your batteries last longer a little more too. The third power hunger is something that you have the two little engines that make your extension and define your focus. Again there is really nothing you can do about it, especially the focus, but try to avoid constantly zoom in an out as much as possible, this will save you a lot of energy too. Connecting the camera can actually cost you power. If you have the habit of taknig a picture every three or four minutes, it makes more sense to leave the camera because the energy consumes these minutes (assuming the LCD is turned off, including photos) may be less than it takes to start it. On the other hand, if you have the LCD at all times off the camera between shots, you can save energy If your photos are more than five minutes apart. You should also have a setting in your configuration menu for establishing when the LCD is off by itself, to set the lowest value for the LCD is not how often. Something you should also be aware of alkaline batteries is that they need a rest once in a while. They are not designed for continuous operation. When the low battery indicator appears, the camera is turned off for a few minutes and then back again. This kind of resets the battery and you'll get more life out of it. Battery wise, alkalines are ok to emergencies if you must take pictures, but they are not really meant for digital cameras. The specials that are marked for this purpose are made to digital. They have a little more energy and tend to recover more quickly from an energy drain, as a result they survive longer. However, even these do not actually give you impressive lifelong. Basically you're better off buying nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. A one-hour charger and four batteries is usually not very expensive and the batteries can be recharged at least five hundred times what they paid very fast. When I used to use a point and shoot, I have two in the camera and four in the case as a spare. With those I could take pictures every day without any problem and then at night, I just charged them. Be aware though that they come in different flavors. AA batteries have different power levels with the most expensive with the highest rating. For a digital camera you want an AA battery which has a capacity of 2200 mAh, 2400 mAh is better. The package will tell you the power and the battery should too. You can buy less powerful ones with less money, but in this case, you better take a lot of extras, because they will run down fast. I'd say just go to the level 2400 mAh. The other thing you need to be aware of is that they have no power forever. They will lose about 1% per day. So just because you ordered them quite a week ago does not mean they are at full power when you want to use the camera. Get in the habit of covering them before go out for a photo shoot. You do not damage them doing it. Some camera manufacturers also have lithium ion batteries availabe for their cameras. In some cases you have no choice, only the manufacturer will fit and work. In other cases, you can use the manufacturer of lithium-ion (at a cost of course) or AAS. If your camera has an option that would be even better with those that last longer than NiMH batteries and carry more energy. They also do not tend to lose the power to do so the NIMH. Unfortunately, however, they are more expensive of course. In terms of your other question, no, all digital cameras are like that. As a class of less expensive point and shoot cameras eat batteries. The major end point and shoot do too, but not so much, my point and shoot Canon G7 camera makes about 220 images with load, 450 if I turn off the LCD. And my Nikon takes about 2000 images with a load. So how? The upper end point and shoot digital cameras have circuits more efficient technologies that reduce battery consumption, but it is also because they are much more expensive, that stuff is expensive. SLRs have built more efficient technologies that do not use the LCD, except to briefly display the last shot for two seconds. As a result, they have little power to operate. I hope this helps a little.
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