canon s3 batteries

On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 08:33:02 GMT, "John" <me.RemoveThis@home.com> wrote:

>Is it normal for the camara to display a low battery warning literally 1/2 a
>second before it closes down?
>
>John
>

Not uncommon for Canon. I had a s230. When low battery warning came
on it would not take any more pictures. Once I tried it messed up the
CF memory.
 >> Stay informed about: canon s3 batteries 

cheers - the s3 is new... as are rechargable 2600mAh Hi-MH batteries - but I
have not idea how many pics i can take with them! There is no way of knowing
as, like i say the only time i've seen a battery symbol on the cam is just
as it switches off!



"ASAAR" <caught.TakeThisOut@22.com> wrote in message
news:2hb8e2pc0hfhqihnf3s1f1s5378mkpe22l@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 08:33:02 GMT, John wrote:
>
>> Is it normal for the camara to display a low battery warning literally
>> 1/2 a
>> second before it closes down?
>
> It doesn't have to be, but some poorly designed cameras will
> exhibit this behavior. It may also be an indication all 4 AA
> batteries are no longer evenly matched, and one or two may have lost
> part of their original capacity. Alkaline batteries won't provide
> as many shots, but if you use them you'll probably get a low battery
> warning well before the batteries need to be replaced. My Fuji S5100
> also uses 4 AA batteries, and it has two battery warning levels.
> From what I recall, the warnings started several dozen shots before
> the batteries needed to be replaced.
>
> In general, it's not a good idea to wait for battery warnings
> before replacing the batteries. If you know based on experience
> that your batteries should be good for 500 shots per charge, it's
> probably best to replace them with a fresh set at the first
> opportunity after you've reached about 350 shots. This should be
> easy to do if you use the camera consistently. That is, if you
> always or rarely use the flash. But since your camera can probably
> take at least 500% more shots if you never use the flash than if all
> of your shots use it, any time your shots require a mix of flash and
> non flash shots it will be much more difficult to be able to make a
> good guess at when it would be a good time to swap batteries. If
> you have a charger with you, and especially if it's a fast one (some
> can completely charge the batteries in less than 15 minutes) you can
> be much more conservative and swap batteries much earlier than
> usual.
>


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 >> Stay informed about: canon s3 batteries 

On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:30:12 GMT, John wrote:

> cheers - the s3 is new... as are rechargable 2600mAh Hi-MH batteries - but I
> have not idea how many pics i can take with them! There is no way of knowing
> as, like i say the only time i've seen a battery symbol on the cam is just
> as it switches off!

It's easy. When the camera switches off, write down the number of
the last picture that was taken. Do that each time the batteries
run down and you'll soon know how many shots that camera is good for
per charge. Also, if you can remember when the batteries were
previously changed, examine the dates of the pictures saved on your
computer. If you haven't renamed the pictures, you'll have another
way to count the pictures taken per charge.
 >> Stay informed about: canon s3 batteries 

John wrote:
> Is it normal for the camara to display a low battery warning literally 1/2 a
> second before it closes down?
>
> John

When you start it up again, does it still have a low battery
warning? Or is the warning only during shutdown?

If the latter, and if the battery life seems normal, I'd ignore it.

Alan
 >> Stay informed about: canon s3 batteries 

On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 23:01:43 +0200, Dave Quail wrote:

> I am getting on average around 650-700 pics on large superfine with about
> 15% flash usage. Check the 5th post down in this thread for explanation of
> why there is so little warning:

I checked, and it's similar to what one other ng poster frequently
says here, but that ng poster is mistaken and the reason given by
geepondy (in the dpreview forum) is closer to the truth. NiMH
batteries do have a much flatter voltage discharge curve than
alkalines, but it's not difficult to design a fairly accurate
"meter" in devices using them. I have several radios that use 4 AA
batteries, and their battery meters (something like 14 segment bars)
are virtually useless for alkaline batteries, but are remarkably
accurate for displaying the battery voltage, and by extension, the
remaining operating time. Freshly charged NiMH batteries light up
most of the bar's segments (about 12), and the "meter" shrinks by
one segment for about every 2 hours of use. When the last segment
vanishes, the radio is within minutes of powering off. Cameras
present more challenges since their current draw is less uniform
than that of most radios, at least the way they're frequently used,
but none of them are so difficult that they couldn't be easily
overcome. After all, the camera doesn't have for its "meter" a
simple "dumb" electrical circuit, but has the use of one or more
computer chips that can assess battery usage. Unlike a "dumb"
meter, the camera's computer chip knows when motors are activated
(zooming, focusing, etc.), when the sensor is consuming more or less
energy and when the flash is used, and it can be programmed to know
what effect that these operations have on the batteries. Great
accuracy isn't needed. Most people don't expect the meter to say
"The battery has 24 minutes left" or "WARNING: The battery has less
than 2 minutes left". They'd probably be satisfied with a more
subtle blinking battery icon that starts flashing approximately 10
or 20 minutes before the battery finally conks out. And that should
be quite easy to do, but to invert a popular saying and apply it to
camera meters, where there's no will, there's no way!
 >> Stay informed about: canon s3 batteries 

On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 08:33:02 GMT, "John" <me RemoveThis @home.com> wrote:

> Is it normal for the camara to display a low battery warning literally 1/2 a
> second before it closes down?

It is with NiMH batteries.
 >> Stay informed about: canon s3 batteries