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Replacing the best recharagables ever three to fours months on the AA sounds Right. I switched to RayOVac , hybrid (nickel metal hydribe) (Walmart) and they come charged and seen to last longer on the shelf and in the camera and recorder. Get a toy flash light and run the AA &AAA all the way down this may help. A charger and 4 of each cost less than $12.00.

I have used them several months with out much use and the Shelf Life is good.

I still use a Canon camera that I purchased in 2000, have taken over 14,000 pictures with it and I believe I am on my third or fourth battery at this time.  It came with a lithium rechargeable battery, and all I need to do is plug the camera in for a few hours at night to recharge it.  I have never had a battery charge go down when I really needed it as far as working claims, but at times that I am not working and using it just sporadically I don't think to charge it and it has run down on me a few times.  I recently had a visit from my stepson and we did a lot of sightseeing where he used his camera that required batteries to be replaced versus our camera and after that I decided I will never own a camera that did not have rechargeable batteries in it, and based on the history of the camera I have I will try to find a camera with the same type battery setup.  Keep in mind when I did have to replace the battery it cost around $25, this divide that out between the total number of pictures taken and it turns out to be pretty cheap.

Like Steve said, Canon makes really good batteries. Always get a 2nd battery and just rotate them. My Canon S-60 is running on the same pair of batteries that I got early 2005. Lot's of photos since then.

I've gone through 6 digitals since the 90's.  The old Sony Mavica's chewed up batteries because they did physical work - writing to a floppy disk.  Then I found that the Nikon batteries stopped taking a charge within a year.  When my old Nikon Cool-pix 5000 batteries both crapped out - I got an adapter that held 6 AA batteries because I really liked the wide-angle lens on the camera. But even the expensive rechargeable AA's would not last as long as the little Canon battery, just keep a spare and rotate them.

You can get the discontinued Canon S-60 and S-70 on Ebay and they have a 28mm lens that is wide enough to take interior shots and see the whole room. Canon finally came out with one of those small "elf"cameras that has a wide angle lens, and that is going to be my next camera. The old S-60 is like a tank, and these newer ones are so small - yet the battery life is awesome. I have 2 family members with the Canon Elf cameras, they rave about the battery life.  Here's the one with wide angle lens:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_reviews/sd800.html 

In the old days of 35mm SLR adjusting, a 28-105 was just about perfect.  I also had a 24mm super wide lens that I put on when I had to photo a small kitchen or bathroom.  That is what the pro's use at architectural digest in order to show the whole room.  A wide lens is also vital if you photo a vehicle that has been impounded or in the storage yard, squeezed up against other cars and the fence.

This is a 7 megapixel camera, but can be set as low as 640 x 480.  This camera was released November 2006 and should be coming down in price.  Put it on your Xmas list... and don't forget to ask for a 2nd battery.

Thanks Bob and Steve I will ask Santa for a Canon elf the 28 to 105 is what I need.

Remember the old days, having a 35mm camera with a neck strap?
I still use a neck strap with digital cameras, to take photos without stuffing it back-and-forth into a pouch on my tool belt.

My wide-angle Canon S-60 is very heavy for a digital camera. I know the smaller SD-800 will be much lighter as it hangs from my neck, but may not be as sharp at the edges when set a wide angle. There is always a compromise, but that is one I am willing to make. The SD-800 was released a year ago, so the 399 price has been dropped to 249 (Amazon).

The "new" wide angle Canon is the SD-870  http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/canon_sd870.html but they did away with the optical viewfinder. If my batteries are about toast at the end of a long day, I like the option of turning off the display to save batteries. 

The SD-800 and the SD-870 are both wide angle.  Beware of all the other Canon "Elph" models that look the same, but are not wide angle.  Digitals that don't go to 28mm wide angle drive me nuts when trying to photo damage to the interior of a house.

Yeah - but some companies do seem to go the extra mile to make sure their batteries are high quality. We have all seen it with cordless tools. I have Makita batteries that just keep on going year after year, but the Craftsman stuff won't hold a charge after a year.

That was my experience with Canon vs Nikon batteries, the Nikon's just wouldn't hold a charge so I got a 3rd one in the rotation and it crapped out way too soon as well.  In my quest for wide-angle digitals I also had an Olympus for a year, then it's batteries wouldn't hold a charge anymore. 

I started to treat them like cell phones.  If the battery flaked out and I didn't really like the camera, I wouldn't invest in another battery for it.

Hi Nick, you have done a lot more research than I have on batteries no doubt.
One of my Makita's is 10 years old and the original battery is running strong - I don't think the NMH (Nickel Metal Hydride or whatever) was born yet. That old Makita has been through the war and keeps on ticking with the original battery.

I got some newer Makita's in 2003 and the impact wrench came with the NMH high amp batteries and the other drill set came with the old orange ones that I believe are still the older Ni-Cads. The NMH ones do hold a charge longer, have more balls, but I trust that the orange ones will still last longer than the competition.

On the Canon, the link to the SD800 Elf noted above says this:

Of course when someone is selling something they are gonna lie to you... but there is something "proprietary" with Canon's compared to other brands.   At Amazon you can buy an extra factory Canon battery for 34.99, or with a "strap and a case" for $45.99.  Or you can get a generic knock-off battery alone for $9.79 from Amazon for that same camera. 

I would put my money on the factory battery - and that is what I plan to do when I buy this camera with spare battery.  The knock-off is Li-ion, but I just know it won't compare to the Canon factory battery.  Update:  I see another Generic for that camera and the review say it is as good as the factory battery for only 10.54 and for that price I would be tempted to get it as a 3rd one in rotation.

the proprietary may be the factor, it could have a cell balancer, or microchip in the battery pack so that the battery keeps together longer. good find.

for $10.00, the experiment should be fun. there could be a quality difference, or the battery may not of passed through as many vendors.( ie; Canon USA buys battery from Canon japan, who then buys from sourcing company, who then buys from china manufacture.)

i use to work with a company out of california that sourced molding, electronic, and 100 of other various products from china. I lost faith in a lot of high dollar brands while there. I was sourcing the same helmet for Bell helmets(one of the largest and most expensive helmet manufactures on the market) that i was for a small company that would install a mp3 player headset in the helmet and sell them for tremendously less.

my interest in lithiums started when i began flying electric RC planes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm_QDi4DAc8  i went from buying the cheap cells, to the $400-$500 cells and then back to the cheaper. I learned that maintaining your cells with the proper chargers and equipment was more important than what you spent on the cells.

Sony Lithium batteries have a chip set in them to tell you how much more battery power you have to work with. Thats how we keep up with the Mavica battery life. We have some of the lithiums that have lasted well over 4 years. If properly maintained, they last a long time.

I treasured my Mavica back in the day. And your right, those were good batteries, especially considering the work they have to do spinning that disk compared to today's cameras that simply push electrons.  I had 3 batteries in rotation for my old Mavica because the flash + spinning disk would run them down.  But they would charge up and last for years. 

They never made a Mavica with a wide angle lens.  I felt like I had to walk back on a roof, all the way "off" the roof in order to show what I wanted to show.  And I like to take a very wide shot of the room, then close ups of the damage. 

The other thing is that the cost of memory storage has gone down so much. Here you can see a 1 gig memory card for that Canon digital Elph for 13.75 and that = 694 floppy disks. I find that the newer cameras will focus, fire, and be ready for the next photo while the Mavica would still be "churning away" at the floppy disk.

Nowadays I walk back to the office with a ton of photos, plug a 2 gig USB Flash memory stick in the back of the laptop. I "copy" all images to the USB drive as a "virgin" backup, in a folder with today's date. There could be 5 inspections all dumped into that folder.  

Then I "Move" the images off the camera memory card into folders for the different claims on my hard drive. This leaves my camera ready for the next day's photos, and the whole process goes faster than the Mavica, despite the fact that the Mavica made it's own backup (the floppy disk itself).

If it ain't broke don't fix it... but Janice I have a hint of what you can get Tom for Xmas.

Bob, I still use a Mavica too.  Tom and I each have one.  I use his sometime, his is newer and of course more advanced than mine.  The problem with me using his is I sometimes forget to turn on the flash and have very dark pictures.     The flash on mine is automatic.  We just bought two new batteries for our Mavicas to replace some that were over 7 years old.  So, since I invested in new batteries, I plan to continue using my Mavica.  I have a wide angle lens for my Mavica, but it's a pain to have to put it on and take it off.   Tom bought me a fancy Canon "something or other" for our anniversary, and I use it some, but prefer the Mavica for work.  What can I say, I'm old and set in my ways.

What makes you think I'm getting Tom anything for Christmas?

HINT: I sure do like the Canon Rebel EOS XT, as I have a multitude of Canon lenses I use for my 35MM Canon Rebel. They will work on the new digital camera. I hardly use the 35MM anymore. I should probably sell the Canon body on E-Bay rather than let it lay collecting dust.

HINT: Christmas is near, my birthday (11/22/07) and our anniversary is on my birthday. Married 16 years to a wonderful, loving lady. Kiss, Kiss. My old Mavica is still working excellent, as I take care of it properly. Janice's old Mavica is about 7 years  old, banged up by roofs, etc., but it too is still working well. I am a Canon camera person. I think their technology is better than the rest. I love photography and at one time did free lance photography in my spare time. I did a lot of aerial photography years ago. I let one of my daughters fly my Cessna Skylane and did residental photos and after developing, gave the 8x10's to my 4 daughters and let them canvass the neighborhoods and sell them. I let them keep the money for extra stuff they might want. They made a LOT of money doing that. I would say they sold at least 90% of what was taken.

I bought one of those also, back in the day, as I was so frustrated by the lack of wide angle. But it made the photos look like a "fishbowl" with curved lines. Maybe yours is better.

Cuz you folks found work.

Yep, they fit and work, but there is a conversion factor that happens because the imaging device on the digital camera is smaller than the old 35mm film negative. If you put a 28mm wide angle lens on, it acts like a 45mm lens.  There is a 1.6 conversion factor for most digital SLR's (Single Lens Reflex).

If money is no object, there is a Canon EOS with an imaging sensor the same size as 35mm film, but still very expensive. They will keep coming down in price though.  If I had to buy a digital SLR today, I would buy the same camera you are talking about but get the lens made for it,

Available only in the Digital Rebel XTi kit, Canon's compact EF-S 18–55mm f/3.5–5.6 zoom lens approximates a 28–90mm zoom lens (in 35mm format).

These numbers I am referring to are the "Focal Length" and I know Tom understands that.  For those who are not familiar, that is a measurement from where the light "crosses" (as the image turns upside down on the film) to the surface of the film (or imaging sensor on a digital camera).  That distance is the focal length, and it determines if you are zoomed in or wide angle.

If you had a small cardboard box and pushed a nail into the side, so the light entered from that point to expose the film, that is the focal length from the "hole" to the film.  These were called "pinhole" cameras and had no lens at all.   The light "crosses" at that pinhole, and lands upside-down on the film.  Today's camera's do the same thing, but the lens helps to focus the image.

A focal length of 28mm on a 35mm camera produces a traditional wide angle.  35mm refers to the size of the negative, and http://www.panoramafactory.com/equiv35/equiv35.html    

A focal length of 50mm was a "normal" lens (what the human eye sees) that was neither zoomed -in, nor wide.  The 105mm is a classic "portrait" lens, it zooms in on the subject.  Sports photography requires powerful zoom lenses, a focal length of say 500 would be zoomed in to the point that it was only looking at only a very small part of the football field.

I have had a Sony Cybershot P-200 for several years.  It has a Lithium battery.  I bought an extra battery and rotate them.  The camera is extremely durable and has survived several impacts with the ground from the roof, one being concrete.  The optical zoom is great and it has a lot of other features I do not use.  Small rooms are a pain and a better wide angle feature would be helpful.  Any advice on tweeking the wide angles would be appreciated.  Overall I give it a good rating and would buy it again.