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My camera is acting weirdly these days... After putting fully charged batteries into it I was only able to take 2-3 shots before it turned off and showed the battery low symbol. So I took my camera to a shop and they changed the battery and cleaned the battery socket and so it was working fine at the shop. After getting home I tried to take some pictures, to test it, and it shut off again. This time, fortunately I was able to take 5 shots. Any idea what might be happening?

Camera model : Olympus FE-210.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ You're certain they gave you a new battery, not the same battery as before? Do you have a spare battery to try yourself? \$\endgroup\$
    – Warren Young
    Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 12:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes it was a new pair of rechargable alkaline batteries.. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nemo
    Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 12:19
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    \$\begingroup\$ Are you sure they are rechargeable alkalines? That's a relatively uncommon thing, and they're not the best sort for a camera. Cameras require a lot of current very quickly, which makes nickel and lithium rechargeable chemistries a better fit. (NiMH, LiIon, etc.) So, try a pair of NiMH cells. \$\endgroup\$
    – Warren Young
    Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 12:28
  • \$\begingroup\$ I am sorry...it is nickel cadmium battery. A Greenish - yellow colored sanyo. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nemo
    Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 13:08
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    \$\begingroup\$ NiCd should be fine, but I'm having a hard time believing they were "new." Cadmium is highly toxic, so NiCd is increasingly uncommon, even illegal some places. Maybe they gave you some 5-year-old stock they can't legally sell any more. Nickel chemistry cells that sit around for years usually won't hold a charge. \$\endgroup\$
    – Warren Young
    Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 13:57

4 Answers 4

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The possible sources of error can be:

  • Expired/bad quality battery (e.g. you used it beyond its operation temperature limits).
  • Camera-to-battery communication is corrupted - either a circuit is faulty, or even more likely that the data connection between these two is corrupted. Check for dirt on the copper contacts of the camera and the battery. Cleaning is a good idea, just do it properly.
  • You are shorting something inside the camera. This can even be a faulty SD card.

You could do a step-by-step problem elimination. If you can find someone with a camera you can use the battery of, try with those batteries and give yours to them to try in theirs. This solves the question whether it is the battery or other source that causes the problem.

Also, just measuring voltage could help, just do it properly, don't short the battery.

Also, you can just remove the memory card and test without or test with another memory card.

And please come back and tell us what the source was if you can find it out. :-)

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Sure.. I will definitly try all the solutions provided by every one.. and let you know.. :) thank you @TFuto \$\endgroup\$
    – Nemo
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 10:19
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Have you checked the tension of the battery door spring/bracket? On my Canon Powershot S90, over time, the spring that pushes the door against the battery so it makes good contact, lost tension. Eventually, even with a freshly recharged battery pack, as soon as I turned the camera on, I'd get the "change battery pack" message, and the camera would shut down. I removed the door from the bracket/spring and gently bent it a little to add tension, and the problem was fixed.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I will definitly check this solution and let you know. Thank you.. :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Nemo
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 6:20
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This is a pretty late suggestion but I hope it will help anyone who's in the same situation. I experienced the same thing but in my case, the camera would turn off every time I pressed the shutter. I read on another site that it could have something to do with having an SD card.

Now for me, it had been a long time I had used the camera and the SD card I had kept isolated for a long time as well.

So what I did was take out the SD card and turned the camera back on. So far so good. Then I decided to lock the SD card before re-inserting into camera. The camera screen then popped up a message saying 'the SD card is write-protected'. I then took the SD card out and unlocked it before reinserting into camera again and abracadabra....it workded O_O

(P.S to lock the SD card, there should be a small kind of switch on the side of the card itself which you can push)

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Sometimes - and I've just been reading about this -, weirdly enough, cameras can turn off if they basically crash and cannot write fast enough to the memory card.

I've never experienced this - only read about it. Is your memory stick of a lower class (they'll indicate this, Class 1-10 - or a rating in Mb/s)?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Seems unlikely if he's only taking a couple of shots, so buffer filling up doesn't seem likely. Might help to find a link \$\endgroup\$
    – MikeW
    Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 19:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ @MikeW depends on the camera, if it solves the OPs problem then others searching who scroll for the answer will see it, if it does not I shall delete as needed. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alec Teal
    Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 19:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ You people are so helpful.. Thank you so much for putting this effort. Now I am away from my home. I will definitly try this solutions and let you know.. :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Nemo
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 6:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ @MikeW BTW the source for this was the GoPro support guide (their official one!) \$\endgroup\$
    – Alec Teal
    Commented Sep 11, 2014 at 7:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ @AlecTeal can you add a link or paraphrase what it says? \$\endgroup\$
    – MikeW
    Commented Sep 11, 2014 at 19:34

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