Short battery life with AAs or camera won't even...

I have the same problem with my olympus branded camera i can only take 3 -4 pictures ,although i bought new charcable batteries they don't seem to work either..

i need help with my samsung digimax a503 i have brand new alkiline batteries in it and it says low battery and turns off please someone help im going crazy with out my camera

stick with the lithium batteries, and other will drain too fast.

It is a waste of money to use Alkaline batteries in a power hungry digital camera. The only reason you get them included with new cameras is to provide you a way to turn on your camera and see how it works. The market is highly competitive and they cannot afford to raise their advertised selling price by including NEEDED rechargeables and a charger to use them.

Read any camera manual and they will tell you to get rechargeables. Now there are NiMH Hybrid Precharged batteries that will hold their charge longer over time, it is even more a waste of money to not use them. Buy name brand batteries. Digital china junk, sold right on the shelf beside 'real' batteries, make it easy to make mistakes.

Of course, the best solution is to buy a newer camera that uses Rechargeable Lithium. One half the weight of NiMH and hold a charge much much longer, ie, will not self-discharge any where near as fast as AAs sizes.

I have a similar problem. The batteries not only do not last very long but the camera is now getting very hot under the body, not the batteries. I have the Dimage Z2 4.0Mega Pixels. I am also having trouble with it focusing correctly. Granted I do not know as much as I wish I did about this camera and possibly it is set on macro or something like that but I can only get a good close up photo. Since the batteries say they are exhausted I can't do much to fix it until I get new ones. Any suggestions as to why it would get hot like that?

@ Kath17:
It sounds like the charger. If you bought new batteries and the problem persists it has to be 1 of 2 things:
1. Faulty charger
2. Faulty camera

@ bamdrew, SamTed & kcCasey
It sounds as though you have a similar problem to the known issue with Hewlett Packard's HP Photosmart 635 (see FixYa for more).
The HP 635 has a fault whereby the 'date/time' battery continually tries to charge itself by drawing on the main AA batteries. I physically removed the faulty battery by applying Nspektor's (from FixYa) solution today and it seems to have fixed my camera. I have had a fresh pair of Varta 'Ready2Use' 2000mAh nimhs in the camera for the last 3 hours and I can still start the camera with no problem. Previously this would not be possible.

Regarding disposable lithium batteries, there is an alternative. The next generation of nimhs called 'ready to use' come pre-charged and hold 80% of there charge for months. As the name suggests they can used straight from the packet. Normal nimhs discharge at about 1% per day. As of Feb '08 'ready to use' nimhs are 2000mAh maximum, but will probably increase in capacity in the future.

I have only used Varta 'Ready2Use' 2000mAh AAs & 800mAh AAAs but they worked straight from the packet and I haven't charged them since I bought them about 5 weeks ago.

I use them as backup batteries for the numerous normal nimhs I have, so when e.g. the mouse batteries go flat, I can pop in the 'ready to use' batteries while I charge the normal nimhs. Eventually I will buy more 'ready to use' batteries and use them for main use and one set for backup as above.

As a long term user of rechargables due to concern for the environment, and also the cheaper cost, the new 'ready to use' batteries are great. They cost the same as normal nimhs so there's no reason not to get them.

I hope this helps.

I am a semi-pro, long-time photographer and I just learned from a long-time pro that lithium-ion (Li-ion) rechargeables are the best and better than nickel-hydride (Ni-Mh)batteries and far, far better than nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries. They are more expensive but the Li-ion and Ni-Mh batteries don't have the "memory" issue that Ni-Cds have.
They perform better (by keeping the voltage at a more constant level) until they poop-out and don't care when you choose to pop them back into the charger to get them back up to a full charge.
All rechargeables slowly but constantly drain off some of their energy, just laying around. They are not a good choice if you don't use your camera or flash very often (or for a smoke detector, for that matter). Then I would go with disposable lithium batteries. They also hold up better and longer in the cold.

I have the same problem with a Canon Powershot s20. Bought approx 5 years ago the camera is fine but we have not used it for a few years as the battery (lithium recahrgeable) would show on charger as being fully charged but would only last a few minutes. Thought it was a battery problem so just recently bought a couple of new batteries and the same thing happens. Does anyone have the same problem? Could it be the charger?

We're finding excellent performance out of the Energizer Lithium AA batteries. They're not rechargeable (sorry environment) but they do last about 7 times longer than alkalines (1/7 th the waste, yahoo). Price is about 4X higher than alkalines. Cost per shot works out less than alkalines.

My old Olympus C4040 is also having major battery issues (going on 5 years of ownership, problems apparent at 3.5 years in). I can't use it anymore as it immediately states that new or fully recharged batteries are low. I've been thinking about taking it apart and investigating, or bending up the battery contacts to see if thats the problem.

I have almost identical issue with a Dimage Z5 (Konica/Minolta). I have had the camera three years and this just started. They no longer make them, of course. I expect there is some circuit problem draining the batteries.

Sam

With my camera, that doesn't help much. The camera drains batteries within 10 minutes. You have to hurry up and take whatever picture you want and even if you use rechargeables it is a real pain to have to replace the batteries that often. There must be something wrong with this camera. It has done this from the very beginning and with the Panasonic batteries that came with the camera. A total bummer. Had I known this I would NEVER HAVE BOUGHT THIS CAMERA (PANASONIC LUMIX DMC LZ2)