why is my battery always empty even with new ones put in

this camera was working fine until the first set of standard AA batteries that came with it died. We have tried numerous batterries, some cheap and some expensive, but the camera will not turn on. Now and again it will, before it instantly tells me it is out of battery and turns off again. it is rendered useless at the moment.

Standard batteries simply won't cut it for digital cameras these days. You need batts with higher energy (rated in mAh). You'll want batts with an mAh of at least 2500 to handle the high energy needs of your camera. Otherwise, you'll kill them quite quickly.

Kelly, I have the same problem. I tried different makes of batteries including some Energizer 2100mAh ones. This camera is very picky on batteries. When the batteries are reported dead by the camera, they actually still have a lot of power left. I tried to put those 'dead' batteries into another camera and could run for a long while.

It is not proven but I tried a trick. If the camera does not turn on anymore, you may try to turn on the camera directly into picture playback mode. IYou may do so by pressing the green playback button, hold it and then press the power button. If seems to me the camera can be powered on easier this way. You may then switch to camera mode by pressing the shutter button.