My Canon A570 IS will not hold battery life.

My Canon A570 IS has a problem with batteries. We put new batteries in and within minutes, even seconds, it states to replace the batteries. We have used rechargable and regular batteries. Help.

I was going to suggest using rechargeables, but obviously you did that already. What's more, it should take more than minutes or seconds for this to happen, even with regular AAs. Did you just buy the camera? This sounds like a defect worthy of a return to me.

I'm having the same problem too but I haven;t used rechargeble batteries yet. The batteries I use are not name brand but within minutes or seconds after I put them in the camera says battery is exhausted. I had purchased this camera a few years ago and just really started using it. Plus, I get that red hand too. I thought it might have been the type of battery but now I don;t know. Someone please help me. I would appreciate it. Ty

I had the same problem with my A570 not holding battery life...my friend suggested the "Lithium" batteries. Since then I have taken hundreds of photos without replacing the batteries at all.

Your problem indicate a poor connection in the battery terminals. Remove the batteries and carefully check if there is dirt or liquid on the contacts in the battery compartment. If a previous battery has leaked this may have corroded the contacts and cause a poor connection.

Clean the contacts as best you can with a damp cotton bud and then let the contacts dry for a few minutes. Then use a pencil eraser or some folded normal note paper and rub / polish the contacts as best you can. This has a light abrasive effect that cleans up the contacts.

Always use a high capacity rechargeable NiMH batteries or Lithium batteries in this camera as ordinary Alkaline cells are not suitable for this high power drain camera.

My conclusion; The batteries are the problem.

The cause is the high internal resistance of the used batteries!

Many NiMh batteries have a high internal resistance for use in the A720.
The same applies to the alkaline battery, including those of Duracell.
The Electo 2300 mAh NiMh batteries that I had used, have an internal resistance of 500 mOhm!
The NiCad's Sanyo 700 mAh give no problems.
NiCad's have a much lower internal resistance than NiMh batteries.

The internal resistance can be determined by measuring the battery voltage with load and without load.
For the load I used a resistance of 1 ohm.
Discharge current is then about 1 A.

Example.
Without load 1.3 V voltage measured.
With load of 1 Ohm a voltage of 1.2 V measured.
The internal resistance is approximately the voltage difference measured in ohms.
The internal resistance = 1.3 - 1.2 = 0.1 ohms.

As far as I can see Sanyo NiMh batteries and in particular the Eneloop AA 2000 mAh, are a good choice.

You need to reset your camera after you change the type of battery! I just call the Canon because of the low battery warning. They told me that I need to remove the battery and hold down the power button for 30 seconds to reset the camera, and then put in the new or fresh recharged battery. Otherwise the camera would be confused about the voltage and give the warning. I think that fixed mine and it seems consistent to what many people described here, some battery works but some do, some A570 is fine but another one is not.