Canon Camera Problem (Help!)

JemimaLee

JemimaLee

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Hello there.

I'm relatively basic at photography, I do it only for fun, and I don't know much about technical terms or anything, but I'm having a problem with my camera and just looking for some advice.

About 3-4 years ago I bought a Canon Powershot SX100 IS for about £200, which is a lot of money for me. It's been well looked after, but for about a year now I've been having problems with the battery life. It runs down extremely quickly considering I either fully charge my rechargeables, or buy completely new batteries altogether.

I'll give you an example: today, as a test, I gave the camera to my brother and told him to use it to his heart's content until the battery ran out. He managed to take about 130 photos, but it ran out after half an hour. That can't be normal, right?

I figured perhaps it may be the batteries, perhaps they're not powerful enough for the camera. But I never had this problem when I first bought the camera, and last week I put in a brand new set of Kodak batteries and when I switched it on the "low battery life" symbol was flashing!

What I would really like to know is has anyone experienced this with their Canon camera, and is it fixable at all? I'd hate to have to buy a new camera, but I really need a good one for the Brighton Tattoo Convention at the end of January.

In that instance, if any of you could recommend a good quality, not too pricey (max. £200) digital camera, with a good battery life, compact in size, and one that takes batteries rather than being rechargeable, then please please please let me know!

Please and Thank you!
 
The kodak batteries...are they rechargable ?
What about your older battery ?
 
The Kodak batteries were just plain shop-bought ones, non-rechargeable (sorry I can't be more specific).

I have two sets of AA rechargeables: a pair called UNiROSS Ni-MH 1600mAH, and another pair of Duracell Ni-MH 1800mAH. Unfortunately I don't understand what all this Ni-MH/mAH business is :(
 
The batteries you are using aren't powerful enough.

From a review of the camera:

Battery usage: Battery life is rated at 400 shots with 2500 mAh Ni-Mh rechargable batteries according to CIPA standards. I was able to take around 310 shots before the batteries went flat when I was using 2500mah batteries, and around 80 shots when using Alkaline batteries.
Click to expand...

Your rechargables may also be coming up to the end of their life. In short you don't need a new camera (as long as you're happy with the Canon), but you do need to buy a decent power supply for them.
 
That is fantastic news, thank you so much! I will do just that :) Thanks again!
 
Hi Jemima,

Depending on how you treat re-chargeable bateries they have a definite life which can vary a lot. The worst thing to do is keep charging them and not use them, this will reduce the capacity (the amount of charge they will hold) considerably.

If you are happy with the camera I suggest you buy some Sanyo Eneloop batteries, these will hold a charge for up to two years and still retain a reasonable capacity. They are between 6 to 7 pounds for a set of four from Amazon/7day shop etc.

If you want to try to re-cycle your existing batteries you could keep charging and discharging them four or five times, this can be a bit tedious as the camera keeps switching itself off when discharging, I don't imagine you have a discharger? You may be able to recover some of the batteries lost capacity this way; personally i would buy some Eneloops.

I hope this helps.
 
130 shots isn't that bad... My powershot would do 4 on ordinary AAs.. managed 40 on re-chargeables.

The Mah number is the amount of oomph a battery has. Bigger number is better!
 
4 on AAs !! 40 on rechargeables !! That has to be a typo. Surely your kidding?
 
Gazamonk said:
4 on AAs !! 40 on rechargeables !! That has to be a typo. Surely your kidding?
Click to expand...

Nope. Was an early powershot from quite a few years ago. Was a famous battery guzzler. Before CIPA standards too. Put me off canon ownership to some extent.
 
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