DubiousDrewski wrote:
I don't really know for sure what causes it. All I know is the anecdotal evidence I have collected over the years of dealing with this issue seems to point to something like this, yes.
My theory is this: You know how a battery's voltage will taper the less charge it has? Well a new camera will be able to operate at input voltages that vary up to say, 40% of the designed voltage input. But in older cameras, they somehow lose their versatility for operating in anything but the ideal voltage.
The reason I think this is because there have been a few times when people brought in their old AA cameras. The camera claimed the battery was dead, but my battery tester would rate the battery as being 60% full or more in some cases.
So anyway, AA cameras suck. I highly recommend you don't buy them....Show more →
Interesting theory. Why wouldn't it apply to proprietary rechargables? Maybe it's masked by the fact that, by habit, most people keep small P&S rechargibles in the charger 99% of the time and only put them in the camera when it's actually being used.
I've got a AA P&S that I keep in my fishing vest. I don't keep a charger with it. I can get batteries for that camera at every little gas station in every little burg in North America. If I'm chasing trout in Florence, MT or Cranbrook, BC, I never have to worry about not being able to make that camera work. Not so with proprietary batteries.
So anyway, P&S cameras with small, proprietary batteries suck. I highly recommend you don't buy them.
I have several point and shoot cameras from the early 2000's (C5050z and S602z to name a couple) that take AA batteries and I haven't noticed any degradation in battery life at all. I haven't noticed this effect in any of my cameras that take AA's in fact...(and I have had a LOT over the years).
Hmm. Well I suppose my anecdotal evidence is cancelled out by your anecdotal evidence. So we're even.
Here's another incident. It just happened.
I just had a customer come in asking about film-splicing tools and glue. Of course, being a small electronics store in a very small city, we don't carry that sort of gear. (What tech store does?). She was shocked. "Well you must have something for splicing film". And I could only think to myself "We must? Really?".
I half-jokingly recommended scissors and glue. And then I recommended Ebay. She was in disbelief. And so was I. I mean, does anyone here know of a brick-and-mortar tech store that sells that kind of equipment anymore?
Maybe in SoCal? I used 16mm and 8mm/super 8mm semi-auto splicing blocks back in the day. I can almost smell the glue by thinking about it. I must be having a Bolex moment.
That salesperson at CC was thinking of his commission check. Retail customers are duped every day. I was a retail manager and always tried to instill values in my staff to be honest with customers when they came in to buy items. CC lost business because of their sales staff issues.
I was in Penn Camera in DC a couple of weeks ago and asked about renting a 135L. They had one but wanted what I thought was an exorbitant rental fee. I made a remark that I would just pick one up used and later resell it. They said seriously that they had been trying to find a used one for years and that they just never came up. "Oh, really" I told them I could find one in 15 minutes on Fred Miranda or POTN. They claimed to have never heard of them. They almost kept a straight face. I left.
