"replace battery" innacurate

[NewYuppie]

my s410 worked fine till i went to brazil, then on the next charge of batt, fully charged, my camera started saying "out of batter, replace". to correct the situation i need to open the batt chamber, take it out, and put it in again. then it will turn on and work. and i also believe my batt is not lasting very long.
this happens with both batteries i got, to the point i think there might be something wrong with the camera?
camera and batts are less than 1 year old.
anybody had the same issue?

[royclark]

I have exactly the same sympton with my A510. The replace battery message appears after about 20 shots with Flash on. I did the same thing to push the battery a bit tigher and it continues for another 40 shots. Then the message appears again. I repeat the pressing and it works another 20 shots. According to the manual that comes with my A510, it supposes to take about 300 shots with half of them using flash. I understand that it is more a theoretical kind of figures. But the "replace battery" message is very annoying.

[snapshooter]

try draining the battery (completely), and replacing it in the camera. Or you can do this in some other device. Repeat this several times (discharge/recharge completely). You'll see it will get better over time. I tried researching on this. It seems that batteries rely on the chemical reaction between two metals. So if not all the materials are not reacting to your charging/recharging, it will act erratically. Extreme temperatures also affects battery life as well, again because the flow of the electrons between the materials in your battery are affected.

Now, think about it NewYuppie. Brazil is really warm. And RoyClark, how old is your batteries.

[royclark]

I am pretty sure that it is not a battery issue since I have tried various kinds of battery, new or old, even those unchargeable ones.

It will always come out with a wrong "replace battery" message and then shutdown the camera. After that, open up the battery chamber, do some squeezing, and the battery is back to working order again. It seems to me that the battery chamber feels a bit soft when I tried to push the battery in. And the latch that holds the cover is made of plastic and not closing the door very tightly.

I also noticed that after putting in a new set of battery, even if you take only a few shots, and turn it off. One day later, turn on the camera and it will last only about 10 more shots before giving out the replace batter message. After repeating the squeezing ceremony, I will be able to shoot about another 50 or so with half of them with flash. I have not done a systematic checking on this phenomenon yet, but it seems that it also has something to do with how the battery is discharged.

[snapshooter]

I personally try to keep my batteries out of the cam, as much as I can when I don't use them. I'm not sure if your camera is new, but canon digital cameras have an internal battery for the internal clock, it uses your big battery to get its charge.

If it is a mechanical defect (maybe the coil spring that connects to your battery is misaligned), you should call up canon service.