WHAT IS IT WITH BATTERIES ??????????

My last P&S camera was a Canon PowerShot Vince it took 2 AA batteries and it used to eat them. The only ones that would last more than a handful of shots were the Lithium ones at nearly £7 for 2, and they didn't do much better. I gave up eventually and invested in a charger and some rechargebale batteries, bingo, these lasted much longer.

The first thing I did when I got the Nikon was buy a spare battery, it's a compatible not an original Nikon, I was worried that it would be rubbish, but as a back up I wasn't too concerned. To my surprise it lasts for ages (well at the moment) just as long as the original that came with the camera.

It also seems they can just give up for no reason. I didn't know this until I had to have the one replaced in my phone, I was confused as to why it had suddenly started misbehaving, I was informed by the man that did the replacement for me that they can just suddenly pack up without warning, doesn't matter what age, make or condition. Seems to me they have a mind of their own.

Like you say - What is it with batteries ???? 

Rechargeable batteries do run down in time and loose the capacity to hold the original charge and this usually happens pretty quickly. Needless to say it should not happen for quite a while and a considerable number of charges. As Ruth says I always make sure I have a spare and they are not Canon but third party of various manufacture which come in much cheaper and I have never had problems with. Have 1 Canon and 3 spares for both 550d and 5d as the battery packs hold 2 batteries.

Leaving the camera on uses up battery power, hence most cameras have an option to 'shut down' after a given time set in the menus. Also all sorts of minor programmes such as 'beeps' to confirm everthing you do also waste battery life. I have anything that bleeps shut off on each camera. Apart from being annoying they attract attention anyway which we can all do without

Duracell make a replacement for the FZ38 at around £15 but am fairly sure it, or another brand, could be obtained cheaper with a bit of searching.

The battery for my D3 would last for ages, like 500-600 photos and would be showing around half discharged. After 7 years, it's lifetime recharge indicator was showing it was on its way out, so instead of another Nikon one at 2500 milli amps and £100 I bought a Duracell version at 2100 Ma for around £35. I don't normally need to take over 1000 pics per day, but for those using its motor drive a lot at 9 fps, I suppose you could clock a large number of pics fairly soon. Same battery fits the D2 series.

the smaller more usual Nikon batteries for the D200/D300 etc seem to last ok. Got a spare Hanel battery for the Canon 5D MK2 which still shows the lifetime recharging ability.

With the bad rep lithium ion batteries seem to have acquired,if you want to take spare ones on holiday on a plane, I'd suggest you read the carriers instructions on how they want them packed.

I think a couple of years ago, some Panasonic cameras were designed not to accept third party batteries. Minimising the amount of time the display is on for viewing pics or messing around with the menu will save a bit of power.  

Hiding inside the battery chamber on the D3 is a small battery cover with a mercury battery to keep the clock, menu settings when the battery is taken out. If the D300 also has a small Mercury battery, I haven't found it yet. 

With these odd Panasonic cameras-- the physical size to fit wasn't the issue. The cameras electronics would know it wasn't a Panasonic battery so the camera wouldn't work.  

If you end up with a selection of cameras that take their own dedicated lithium ion batteries, you can end up with a selection of chargers to fit various ones. I tried a CamCaddy2 charger that has moveable contacts for 3.7 and 7.4 volt batteries.

i tried it on various Canon and Nikon d- slrs, a range of compacts with a range of battery types, and it charged them all up. So instead of hunting around for the charger that came with the camera, I just use the one now.

i presume it will also work on mobile phones that have similar replaceable batteries. 

I mentioned the Panasonic issue as, after just re-checking- found a Panasonic notice on their firmware update page from 2009 which affected several models of their cameras.

they essentially stated that they found some third party batteries didn't have various internal protective circuits that might damage a owners camera or the user themselves. It was followed by a warning that after installing the latest firmware ( in 2009), these now revised cameras will no longer accept non-Panasonic batteries as they had previously done, and it will no longer work with them. 

That's why I thought I'd mention it above that this situation might exist with various Panasonic cameras. I don't know what the current situation now is.