How can I preserve battery life in my digital camera?

Question

I got a new digital camera for Christmas. What I'm finding is that the batteries are wearing down very quickly. I replaced the batteries that came with the camera with rechargable ones, but found that for the few things I did with the camera today, i.e. took a few pics, tried to learn more about the camera, I found that the batteries were at less than half again, which meant I had to put the batteries back onto the charger. Is there anything I can do to help preserve the battery life? I'm going on vacation in 2 weeks & certainly don't want to be replacing batteries every time I turn around.
My camera is a Polaroid i531 & takes 2 AA batteries.

Answer 1

The disposable lithium batteries mentioned by the previous poster are excellent, but cost a small fortune. The rechargeable Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries have the lowest cost per picture, but tend to self-discharge quickly (as you found out).

In any case, the best things to prolong the life of any kind of battery is to 1) minimize the use of the preview/menu screen, 2) minimize flash use in brightly lit rooms, and 3) turn off the camera if you haven't taken a picture in the past minute or so ...

I always have an extra set of freshly recharged batteries (and a compact charger) in my camera bag. It takes a bit of extra planning and effort to think ahead to do that, but worth it IMHO...

Answer 2

What kind of batteries did you get? Digital cams EAT batteries. To get good service you need to buy good batteries. I would not use anything less than 2200mAh AA's in a digicam. I would not use a Polaroid either.

Answer 3

If your camera has a viewfinder, use IT and not LCD screen Make sure batteries are rechargeable.

Answer 4

Your best bet would be to use lithium AA's. Although they're not rechargeable they will last you much longer per use than alkalines and much longer than rechargeables will before you have to charge them