[MS]

I recently bought an Olympus D-370 for a great price and overall, am very happy with this little digital camera.

However, as plenty of people told me before I bought the camera, it eats up AA batteries like nothing.
So, I at Sam's Club I purchased the Energizer rechargable pack, which came with 8 NIMH batteries.

However, they last about 1/2 hour, tops. On Mother's day I took several pictures at super high quality (SHQ), and it crapped out on me very quickly. Same thing happened the next day with the other 4 "charged batteries."
Do the NIMH batteries just suck? Should I buy Nicads? Or does using the camera at SHQ all the time really eat up the battery?
The reason I use the SHQ is because I bought a 128mb smart media card, and have plenty of room, plus I like to blow up the good shots.

I realize rechargeables might have a shorter life span, but if this is as long as they last, then I'll just buy alkalines. My time is worth a few extra bucks.

Thanks for any and all help.

MS

[ 05-15-2002: Message edited by: MS ]

[FXWizard]

You've probably already tried this, but how much does your battery life improve if you turn off the LCD (assuming that your camera has one)?

[jfischetti]

I got a whole battery/Charger set from
THOMAS DISTRIBUTING and they have been awesome.

They still have a killer charge in my olympus 3030 after over a year of steady use.
http://www.thomasdistributing.com/mh-c204f-4aa180dc.htm

I highly recommend them....

[mike one]

i've got an olympus d-360(i think)
same camera as yours pretty much.

i bought my batteries for it about 2 years ago from greenbatteries.com, little mom and pop place i found on the web.

nicads suck, don't even think about it.
NiMH are the correct batteries for a digitial camera,
but what is important with NiMH batteries is the mAh rating.
mine from a few years ago are like 1500. now AA batteries have ratings of 1800. this is how much juice they hold. the higher the number the better.
mine from 2 years ago let me take ~ 60 pictures at 1280X960 with flash and no LCD usage. if the LCD is on, the battery life will drop precipitously.

also make sure they're charged fully.

if i were you i would take back the energizer batteries and get some off the web. get batteries regardless of brand (go for 1600-1800mAh). mine look so ghetto, like they were made in someones basement, but they have taken over 2000 pictures without any unexpected complications. if they died tomorrow i'd have no complaints. but i'm sure i'll get at least 2 more good years out of them. and to top it all off they were cheap!

energizer is in the business of making and selling alkaline disposable batteries, they have no desire to make good recharageable batteries since it will hurt their profits. think about it.

[G4ME]

I have had great success with my Rayovac Alkaline Rechargeables on my cd player they have the same lenght as any normal cd and only charge in 2 hours, Rayovac also has some more powerful battaries that would be perfect with digital cameras