5 Ways to Extend the Life of Your Digital Camera Batteries

Depending on how often you use (or don’t use) your digital camera, you may find that it sucks the juice out of the batteries in it like a bunch of hungry teenagers when they see a feast of pizza and chips on a table.

I use a Canon PowerShot SD880 IS Digital Elph, which takes a Li-ion battery.  We have both an actual Canon branded one and an off brand one to switch out with.  The Canon one retains its power much longer than the off brand one.  But still I was curious to see why, or if there was something I could do to extend the life of the batteries longer while they were in use.  After some research, I came up with the following tips and information.

1. One of the most helpful things that many of us don’t think of….turn off the camera when not in use.  You know at birthday parties or holiday gatherings we snap a couple of photos and then put the camera down in anticipation of another shot….but we don’t use it again.  While the camera has been sitting idle, the camera has been draining the power out of the battery.  If there is a feature on your camera to change the delay time to a quicker auto off if you don’t use it (mine shuts down after 1 minute), change it to the lowest possible setting.

2. If your camera takes more than one battery, don’t mix and match brands or expiration dates.  Use batteries from the same package, and replace them all at the same time when needed.

3. While our camera doesn’t have a view finder, if yours does and you don’t use it for all your picture taking, turn your LCD screen off.  That is one of the larger power consumption parts of a camera when it comes to batteries.

4. Don’t use the playback feature on your camera if you don’t need to.  Again this is a huge power resource.

5. Make sure your batteries don’t come into contact with moisture or water, as this could cause corrosion.  If you know you won’t be using your camera for a certain amount of time because you aren’t a big picture taker (holidays, vacations, family gatherings only, etc.) – then remove the batteries completely and just put them in the camera case.

If you’re looking to purchase a new camera and one of the things you’re looking at is battery life – Li-ion (lithium) batteries tend to last longer than AA.  However if you are set on a camera that uses AA batteries, NiMH and NiCAD rechargeable batteries should help you save money in the long run.  And always remember even if the batteries you have in your camera are fully charged, to have a back-up set with you, because it’s Murphy’s Law that when you want to take a certain photo…your batteries will be dead!