I was thinking a getting a digital camera, possible a Sony. What type of battery do a lot of these cameras take and about how many photos can you get from one set? Thanks for all the input.

I have an Olympus d-340r, but for comparison's sake, it takes 4 AA batteries.  I got the Energizer rechargeables and get about 100pictures with flash before they need to be charged again.  Keep a spare set around and you're good to go.  Use the digital "viewfinder", and I get about 20 pictures before the batteries die.  My rechargeables have been in use for about 2 years.  Not bad for a $30 investment ($20 for the charger and 4 AA's and $10 for another set of AA's).


toast

This place has 1500, 1600 and 1800 mah nickel metal hydride batteries.

[url]www.nimhbatteries.com/[/url]

The best part about nimh's is that they do not suffer from "memory" problems like nicads.

What toast said.

You definitely need rechargeable batteries and you really need two sets. An AC adapter is a good idea too.

I have an Epson 850z.  It comes with 4 rechargable AA batts and charger.  Those batteries last a long time too.  I think I've taken like 200 flash photos (some with viewfinder, some without) before having to recharge.  Good thing about non-proprietary batteries is you can always pop into the 7-11 and buy more if you need them.

I bought a Sony DSC-P50 for $363 (incl s/h) and I'm very happy with it. It chews through betteries like crazy though. So I bought a rechargeable battery and a charger (the charger I bought from Sony using their $20 product registration bonus, the total came out to $10 for it.)
The memory stick and the rechargeable info-lithium battery are by far the most expensive accessories. I used [url]www.mysimon.com[/url] to shop around for hte camera, a 64mb memory stick, and the battery.

Thanks guys, keep all your advice and experience coming.

I have a Nikon 950.  I use these batteries and charger:

[url]http://www.nimhbattery.com/mh-c204f-4aa170dc.htm[/url]


I have had good luck with these batteries and the company, Thomas distributing.  I have two sets of 4 batteries.  The 1700 milliamp batteries last a great deal longer than the run of the mill rechargables.  Check your battery specs, lots of the variety store rechargables are 900 milliamps.  That is quite a difference.  Volts times amps equal power in watts.  I can shoot about 60 pictures with the LCD display on, on one set of batteries.


I didn't buy a Sony camera because they have proprietory batteries and memory cards that end up costing you more money than similiar generic systems.  I can get 128MB of memory A LOT cheaper than a Sony flash stick.  

A tip:  There is more to a camera than how many megapixels it will capture.  The type and quality of the lens is important as well as several other factors.  The good news is there are a lot of great didgital cameras out there.

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The best investment you can buy for you digital camera is a rechargeable battery.  Being a Sony, it might be a proprietary.

I have a Canon S10, it'll go for about 60 shots on one charge.

I like my Sony a lot, I do agree that battery and memory stick were pricey, but for the memory stick that's pretty much a one-time purchase. Also I should mention that when I was looking for a digicam I wanted a fairly small camera (I have a regular Canon EOS since before, so it was time for a pocket camera.)
I also wanted to get a camera of megapixel capacity and I would have prefered an optical zoom rather than a digital one. I also wanted a regular viewfinder as I feel I have better control of the picture I am taking, plus the fact that a digital viewfinder will drain your battery pretty damn quick.
The Sony DSC-P50 also have the added bonus of being able to take moving pictures (mpegs). For another $100 you can get the DSC-S50 which also records sound for the movies.
The only thing the DSC-P50 didn't have was the optical zoom. However, the 6x digital zoom has worked well so far.

As most people already have said - check around first.

I've got a Sony Mavica FD-75, and for me it's perfect. It takes a very good quality picture, it has a proprietary rechargeable battery(good for around 2 hrs use, I think), comes with the charger, has a 10x zoom, and saves the images to a regular 3 1/2 inch floppy disk. Nothing to hook up to the computer at all. It will only store around 18 images per disk, but as cheap as they are and as little space as they take up, combined with all the other features for my $400 I couldn't beat it. It also will take B&W, Sepia, and negative images.

I have had no problems with my Sony DSC-S75.  It came with rechargeable battery and I got a starter kit, for about $50.00.  It came with a case, a 2nd rechargeable battery and a 8 meg memory stick.  

Batteries are cheap. You can buy them by the pound at Sam's Club. A better investment would be a good lens or more memory. If you are doing alot of indoor shooting, use your power pack if you are in the field buy batteries. I shoot several hundred pictures a week both indoors and out, and I run out of memory a hell of alot quicker than I run out of batteries.