

Why does my camera battery die so quickly?

My Kodak digital camera V530 gets only 15 shots before the battery goes
dead. The camera takes excellent pictures, but has no battery life. Any

In this excerpt from
Answercast #29
, I look at a camera with a battery that won’t hold a


Any ideas?

Unfortunately, only one – dead battery, bad battery.

Replace the battery

  • I recommend that you see if you can replace the battery on that model.

A quick check shows that this camera does have a replaceable lithium ion battery. The very first thing I would do would be to replace that battery and see if that makes the problem go away.

Check camera settings

  • The other thing to check for would be any kind of settings that impact battery life.

Now unfortunately, on any specific camera, that could mean any number of different things. I don’t have a specific suggestion for things to look at in the camera. It would be worthwhile spending a few minutes in the user’s manual and see if they give you any tips for battery life there.

I agree. 15 shots is horrible. It’s worse than horrible; it’s unacceptable.

So, I would begin by looking to see if there’s some battery saving tips and tricks. But this is so bad that I think you’ve (hopefully) got a battery problem that will get resolved when you replace the battery.

If not, it could, in fact, boil down to a problem with the camera itself.


I'll see you there!

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10 comments on “Why does my camera battery die so quickly?”

  1. I’ve got a Kodak Easyshare M853. My battery would give me about 18 shots. Somehow I managed to set the flash to *always on*, even in bright daylight. Amazing how fast the battery would run down.

  2. I had a Kodak and now a sony which uses disposable batteries. Every time I went to use the camera, the batteries were dead. I started taking the batteries out and just putting them in when I wanted to take a pic and that seems to work much better. Not sure if there is something that is using the battery even when the camera is off, but if I didn’t use the camera for a week or more, and the batteries were left in, the batteries would be dead.

  3. Hi, I have a Panasonic Lumix that uses Li-ion batteries specific to it. Over a few years, the two batteries I acquired for it had also lost the ability to hold a charge for more than ~6-10 pics. I tried cleaning ALL contact points with isopropyl alcohol on a Q-tip….the contacts on the battery, the contacts on the charger and the contacts in the camera. AND IT WORKED WELL!!! ….maybe not to brand new status but certainly very acceptable change life. Before throwing those in recycling, give this a try. Idea came from my cordless phone booklet.

  4. All rechargable batteries will loose the charge but it shouldn’t happen that quick.
    Maybe bad batteries; maybe bad camera – it’s possible.

  5. had the same problem years ago with a olympus film camera,sent it to the manufacturer and was told it was the camera,it was an old camera and not worth fixing.

  6. I have been through a few camera batteries in my time before eventually discovering that the more you pay the longer it last!

  7. I also have had this problem with camera batteries loosing charge. I solved the problem by removing the batteries when not using the camera. It seems cameras use some charge even when turned off. It is somewhat of a hassle to reset the date and time every time I want to use the camera. But less of a hassle than not being able to take a picture I want because the batteries are dead!
    Also, I have found Rayovac rechargeable batteries hold their charge longer than most other rechargeable batteries, both in the camera and just setting unused.

  8. Rechargeables will lose (not “loose”) capacity the more often they are recharged before being fully discharged. In other words, don’t put partially discharged batteries in the charger – use the camera’s “discharge” function (my 2 Fujifilm Finepixes have it at least) to drain them before recharging. Obviously, having 2 sets of batteries makes this easier to manage.
    Further, if I may so crudely paraphrase Leo, RTFM! Some settings like face recognition/detection, sport/tracking auto-focus and similar magic tricks come at the cost of a continuous high use of power. Only turn them on when you know you need them – not just “in case” (but know where to find them in the menu!).


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