Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Randy ...

I never got back to your post asking me if my new Olympus D560 Zoom digicam was good indoors.

The answer to that question is a resounding "YES" ... it seems to take great pics both inside and out.

However, I will be returning the camera.

It has one tremendous flaw: it goes through batteries like they are nothing. I was using a 64 meg card, on the highest resolution, and BRAND NEW batteries died before the card was full. Within less than an hour of use, the battery indicator goes from full to dead.

I read someone's review of the camera online, and he noted that the battery life is terrible, because the camera pronounces the batteries dead when they are 30% drained. So the batts are still good, but the camera won't use them.

So ... for anyone still reading this ... when buying a digicam ... make sure to ask about battery life. Even one with rechargeables isn't great because if is blows through the battery, you have to sit and wait for it to charge.

Hope this helps.
Joel

I take it you have used other digital cameras and this one is much worse than normal (I guess that is what the review says too)?

I've only had one other "real" digital camera and was at first shocked by it's short battery life but then I got a couple sets of the NiMH batteries and a charger and found those batteries last much longer than the disposable ones. I notice this Olympus only uses two batteries while my old HP used 4. Those rechargeable metal batteries are very heavy so I suppose they are trying to make a lighter smaller camera but from the reviews it doesn't sound like it's any good with regular batteries, I just wonder if it would be tolerable with high capacity NiMH ones. I would mainly be using it around the house for short snakes sessions so the battery life thing may not be that big of deal for me as I could always have a pair or two charging (with a two battery camera I’ll now have twice as many sets).

Let me know if you have trouble returning it and if I sell some snakes at a show in a couple weeks I may be able to buy it from you.

Bummer about battery life. I just purchased an Olympus C-740 (the C750 is due out by the end of June - about $100 more). All the reviews that I read before purchasing remarked about how this camera's batteries are long lasting because of the new xD media card. I have taken dozens and dozens of pictures and a couple of movies and still the batteries are good to go. It has the 10x Optical zoom and 3x digital. Great camera for the price.

I notice the 740 uses 4 AA batteries rather than 2. Are you using the rechargeable? I think they just last a lot longer.

The camera came with 2 CR-V3 Lithium Batteries. These are throw away batteries and I am carrying them for when the battery goes dead. I did purchase a kit that came with a charger, 4 batteries and camera bag. That's the batteries that I put into the camera and they are still going strong. The only difficulty that I've found with this camera is when the zoom is extended all the way any slight movement will blur the shot. So I use a monopod for long zooming. I really love this camera. No regrets about purchase even though my Canon S10 still performs like new. Just can't compare to the photo's of the Olympus.