Lithium Batteries, A60

[reallyscrued]

Hey, new at the forums, i was wondering if anyone could help me out with some personal experience with the Canon PowerShot A60. I've recently purchased an A60 from NewEgg.com (Great Place) on the intention of using it on a vacation i will take to California on the 4th of July. I do not want to spend money on Alkaline Batteries and was thinking of taking two CR-V3 cells or those energizer lithium batteries that are made specifically for cameras. I was browsing canons site on the camera,

http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/PSA60/PSA60_1103-e.html

and i found some interesting info, i quote: " Caution :
Never use manganese or lithium batteries, as these battery types may overheat in the camera. "

I'm confused, i thought those batteries are made to work in cameras. Can anyone tell me with personal experience with the A60 if they've ever used lithiums cells with it. I am not going to use the camera alot and dont want to invest in a rechargable system. Thanks for any help.

Side Q: Are Compact Flash cards safe past airport scanners?

[another view]

Welcome to the forum. I just bought one for my wife - it's a great little camera and it suits her just fine. At 2mp, you can still get a pretty good 8x10 if you're careful how you do it.

To answer your question, I have not used lithium AA's with it. If the manual says not to use Lithium batteries, don't do it. However, you may want NiMH rechargeable (nickel metal hydride) batteries which are sold at many discount stores. She uses some of mine and they last for a very long time. Mine are 2100 mah (milliamp/hour) but newer ones are 2400 or so. These should last about three times what alkalines last. Lithium AA's are very expensive, and a couple sets of those would pay for these rechargeables. Memory cards aren't affected by X-rays - no problem here.

[Grandpaw]

One very important thing to know is that the LCD screen when used to look at to frame your picture will really eat up the batteries. If you use the viewfinder just like you would with any non-digital camera to frame your shots and leave the LCD screen off the batteries will last considerably longer. The screen will still show you the picture after each shot for a few seconds then turn back off. This will extend the life of your batteries many, many times.

[reallyscrued]

I was going to use grandpaws battery saving strategy anyway. I didnt know batteries and chargers were so cheap. There is one at WalMart for 18.99 which includes 4 2200 Mah NiMH, but its not brand name. Are non-brand name rechargables fine to work with?

[Grandpaw]

check and see what my brother uses. He has a A60 and has taken three sets of 85 pictures and downloaded them to the computer on the same charge with his batteries and they are still going. He came by my house a little while ago and I ask him but he didn't know the brand name of the batteries he has. When he gets home later this afternoon he will let me know and I will post the brand so you can check them out.

[Grandpaw]

He bought his battery charger at Wal-Mart with the batteries included for around $19.00

They were Duracell batteries that said Accu AA HR6 BC1500
NIMH 1.2 volt 2050 MAH on the batteries

Hope this helps. He has been very satisfied with these batteries and charger.

[schuchmn]

Thomas Distributing (www.thomas-distributing.com) sells an awful lot of batteries and chargers. The ones made by Maha have a good reputation. Be careful because some chargers (especially fast chargers) let the batteries over-heat and this reduces their capacity and longevity.

Regards
Dennis

[reallyscrued]

thx again, Grampaw especially. I was wondering if the lower voltage of rechargable batteries would pose a problem, guess not. Dont worry schuchmn, im only lookin for chargers with the trickle feature, temp monitoring, and auto shut-off. i would also like one that can adapt to AAAs, other sizes wouldnt benefit me. If you guys could plz do me a favor and post some good prices you find on chargers below 20 dollars, that would be great. Dont go hunting for it, i dont want to take time out of your day, but if you come across a great deal, please post it or email me at navid.afzal@verizon.net Thx for any help.

[reallyscrued]

nvm guys, ill just take the one at WalMart.

[another view]

You'll be fine. My main camera uses both 4xAA's and 2xlithium batteries. I use both that were bought on ebay, no name brands. The AA's are 2100 mah NIHM and I've been using them for almost a year. It's about a 2-3 hour charge from completely dead. I easily get 400 shots on these per charge, and it's a 6mp DSLR - and I use the LCD monitor screen liberally.

BTW, the CR123 lithiums (again no name brand) sell for about 10-20% of what I can buy them for locally. They work just as good as Duracell, etc.

[Grandpaw]

Having good batteries that last will not be that important if you don't have enough room on your flash card for the pictures. If this trip was worth buying a camera for than it is worth having enough memory to be able to get all the pictures you want to take. I looked it up and it comes with a 16 meg card. At the very least I would get a 64 meg card and a 128 would be what I would suggest. After the trip you can determine if 128 meg card is what you need. Also consider borrowing a card to take on the trip with you along with what you have. We can't tell you what you need as far as memory because it all depends on how much you like to take pictures as to what you will need. Also if you use the movie clip option to get some video that will eat up memory fast.

Remember if you do start running out of memory while on the trip you can turn down the resolution of the pictures and get more pictures and use less memory. You won't have as good of quality but at least you will be able to get your pictures. Also you can review your shots and delete the bad ones to get more room.

The best solution is to be prepared and buy an extra flash card before you go. It's like buying a new car to go on vacation and running out of gas money. That would be a big mistake.

One more very important thing is to learn how to use the camera BEFORE you take the trip. If this camera is new to you the time to learn how to operate it is not while you are on vacation. Be sure and take your book along also just in case you run into problems.

[reallyscrued]

im a noob, but im not a dum@$$. k, i bought a 3 hour rapid (if you'd call it that) charger with 4 AA 2000 MaH's from wal*mart for 16.XX something bucks. and it includes a car adapter. Nice deal eh? and can charge AAA's (good news for my zipzaps and various remotes around the house). It has safety timer protection and all that junk which was what i was really lookin for. Ohhh dont talk to me bout storage. When i bought the camera, i budgeted for storage...believe it. 256 meg compact flash card from SandDisk...37 bucks flat. Newegg baby. It also came with a 16 meg (like you said) i can take 14 pics with 16 megs at high/superfine quality. 246 with the 256 meg card. (low quality shots are not an option.) i am hoping for about the same time i would drain the batteries to filling up the card. I shot about 75 pics with regular AA's that came with the cam before i got the low batt sign. im thinkin around 250 with 2000 mahs. I will buy 4 more for a backup, or always carry 4 duracells to be on the safe side. i am very familiar with my camera, played around with it in the day for about 2 hours then read the damn thick 200 page manual at night. i know everything ther is to know about the A60 and im glad i chose to buy it. 150 for the camera and 37 bucks for the card turned out to be a sweet deal, but of course, ten dollars at walmart for a case and 20 bucks for a charger and 8 batteries also come in the count. so i spent about 230 dollars...........which now pisses me off cuz i could buy the a70, a 3 megapixel version that includes a case, batteries, and charger....but not the card and the case is wayyy to small. i think i got a good deal, thx guys for helpin. il have a great time in california. C ya!

[Grandpaw]

Nowhere in my post that I could read was anything said about being dumb in any way. I wrote it to be of some help if you hadn't thought about the batteries or memory. I do not know what your knowledge of the subject is. All I was trying to do is to help and make sure you had thought about both of these items and didn't get caught by surprise.

When I purchased my digital camera after using 35mm all my life I really didn't realize the importance of batteries and memory.

If somehow you took it as me insinuating you were dumb I apologize, but I can assure you I never have or never will put something in any of my posts that is negative about anyone.

Have a nice day and enjoy your trip.