| Great Camera with a Major Problem, April 21, 2008 | |
| ByCharles Whitlatch "cwhitla" (Duluth, GA USA) - See all my reviews | |
| I wanted a small camera that took decent photos in available light and had high ISO sensitivity. Image stabilization and a wide range of manual setting were also high on my list. This camera delivers all of that. I was pleased with the quality of the shots even up to ISO 800. ISO 1600 was roughly equivalent to what ISO 400 was on my previous small Canon camera so the A590 IS can cover a lot of range in lighting situations. What caught me almost totally by surprise was the extremely poor battery life. Even without using the flash it seems abysmal. I have taken approximately 60-70 test shots and gone through 2 sets of alkaline and one charge from a pair of NiMH rechargeables. Admittedly this was using the flash about 30% of the time but that's still totally unacceptable. I realize that AA batteries don't have the life of a proprietary lithium ion, but this camera's battery life is so bad it makes it almost unusable to me. Seemed like whenever I turned around it was telling me that the batteries were low and needed replacement. I used a battery tester to check them and found that they still registered pretty good so I'm wondering if the camera's battery level sensitivity is just wrong. Either that or this thing sucks power worse than any camera I have ever owned. Whatever the case, I am truly sorry I purchased this otherwise fine camera. I would much rather have decent battery life than the dubious "convenience" of replacing AA cells all the time. Update: With freshly charged 2500 mAh Ni-MH cells I am seeing an improvement in battery life, at least initially. So far I've taken 36 pictures and no low battery message yet. My previous usage was more intermittent so we'll see if these higher capacity rechargeable bring the camera up to what I consider reasonable battery life. My experience with alkalines is still totally unacceptable in my opinion. | |