One of the very cool features of my digital camera is the short videos I can take. I don’t need a separate video camcorder – I can just change the setting on my digital camera to video and I can take video with sound for about 3 minutes. The only drawback to this feature is that it drains the digital camera battery pretty quick. So I decided this morning to order a second battery and always have a charged spare ready to use.
The very first digital camera that I bought was big old clunky Kodak camera that recorded every picture to 3.5″ floppy disk. I had to carry a box of spare disks with me, plus extra batteries, as each battery only lasted for about 40 photos. Then I bought a nice Sony a few years ago that recorded to a memory card. Each memory card holds about 200 hi-res photos, so I never needed an extra memory card. But again, the batteries were a problem – this camera took two AA batteries and the set would only last for about an hour of use. I had to carry extra batteries with me all the time.
I tried rechargeable AA batteries, but they don’t fully recharge each time. After about 40 recharges, the life of each charge drops down to just 10 minutes – that’s about useless for a digital camera. I’m looking for a new camera now, and I can promise you that battery life will be a major consideration of what digital camera model I choose to buy.