battery life

[Ted]

The AA batteries that come with the S2 are a joke. I put them in, went to a site, started shooting and the camera indicated that the batteries were dead. We spoke to the Fuji technician who indicated that the AA batteries supplied with the camera are insufficient. He told me to buy a rechargeable AA kit. If the batteries that are supplied with the camera are useless, why wouldn't Fuji have solved this up front and designed the camera with rechargeble batteries?

Does anyone else have this problem?

[Tom V]

With digital cameras, it is sort of a given that you will go through a set of batteries faster than you think is possible. Digital cameras eat batteries. The more important your shot, the more likely your batteries will die during or just before the exposure.

The battery level indicators do a poor job of doing that. More truthfully, they indicate the charge in the battery on the last shot you took, and have little bearing on what will happen in the future. The indicator will basically show : full, full, full, full, dead.

I am sure that Fuji threw in a set of AA batteries simply to allow a buyer to open the package, and start shooting within minutes. If you rely on these batteries for anything other than a quick start up test, you may be asking for trouble. <Tom removed a sentance here that made no sense> If they put in a rechargable battery, you would have to charge it before you could test the camera I presume.

I, for one, am glad they did not build in a proprietary rechargable battery like Nikon put in the D100. I do not care for the limitations of not being able to use readily available AA Alkalines or AA rechargables. If Fuji built in a rechargable battery, I would not feel safe traveling without one in the camera and 2 fully-charged spares.

I bought a few sets of AA NiMH 1800mAH rechargable batteries and some chargers (one for the car, one for home) and haven't had a problem. There are now 2000mAH batteries available.

The CR123s will die when you least expect them. There are links in these forums to battery sites where you can buy CR123s in bulk and save a lot of money.

[Ted]

Thanks for the reply. I just bought 2 AA chargers, one for the car and one for home as well, it's just that I would have like to have known up front. If Fuji used the AA batteries as a marketing ploy to convince buyers that the camera works well on AA batteries alone, it would have been better, in my opinion, to be up front. This camera is not for the masses,. Most purchasers are well read, have done background research, etc. Fuji should give the purchasers some credit and some respect.

[Swampy]

I am not a profesional here, but I still carry these things in these places besides having a set of batteries in the camera of course:

Camera bag:

1 set (4) Rechargable AA batteries (charged recently)
2 sets (8) standard AA's (Energizer e's usually)
4 CR123's
AC Adapter
Firewire cable
USB cable
Card Reader
Spare memory cards

Car:

1 set standard AA's in the center console
2 CR123's

Office:
1 set standard AA's in the center console
2 CR123's
Car Reader

This works out for everyday stuff for me and gives me great peace of mind knowing I have fresh sets available to me all the time as well as having the cables/card readers available to clear my memory cards quickly.

[teski]

Even though the alkaline batteries do lack, I still got almost 500 pics out of the ones that came with my S2, and I got over 1,000 pics with the included CR123s.

As Tom said, invest in some NiMh batteries. I personally recommend the Maha brand, and you can get them from:

http://www.thomasdistributing.com

Also, as Tom mentioned, there is a great place to get CR123s in bulk...Under $2.50 each!

http://botachtactical.com/toscr123a3vo.html

$13 for a 10 pack.

Teski