Hey guys, I'm looking to get some new point and shoot digitals for our road guys to use on scenes, etc. Our current Cannon Powershot's are showing their age and a couple have crapped out recently. Since this is for the road they do not need to be super fancy etc, I was thinking along the same lines as the Powershots. Since they are gonna be bouncing around in a patrol and generally not taken care of by the Officers I'm looking to spend under 200ish per set up. We have ET's that handle anything big and they have good cameras and equipment. I can probably talk the bean counters into 5 at that price point.

I'm torn between rechargeable vs battery as they both have pros/cons.

Let me know what you guys are using or if anyone has made a similar purchase recently what you went with.

J-

I'm on vacation so I can't check what we use, but I can tell you that using regular AA/AAA batteries is a good thing. For our cameras, we have small Pelican cases for the camera and a spare set of batteries, which really helps with bouncing around in the car. Invariably, when I go to get the camera out, the batteries are dead, so it is simple to pop out the old ones, pop in new ones and go. If they used a rechargeable battery, it would never be charged, plain and simple. We have had a few problems with people using the replacement batteries and not replacing them, but not a lot. Myself, my pocket carry flashlight is AA and our cameras use AA, so I keep a few spares in my duty bag so I have them in case I need them. It is just so much simpler and easier using AA/AAA batteries than it is rechargeable battery packs.

As for the cameras themselves, not really sure it matters for point-and-shoot cameras. In fact, given that cops can fuck up anything, I'm not real sure that it matters if you buy really good ones or not. I do know that the Cpl who takes care of our pics and cameras bought ours from Amazon. Just buy easy to use cameras and you should be relatively good to go.

Bub

I am a Sgt over the crime scene unit and I will tell you go with a decent camera with batteries. None of the road patrol guys will keep the camera charged and swapping batteries is a lot easier. I know that batteries is an expense but the rechargeable one will waken with time causing you to replace batteries or cameras plus im telling you they will not keep them charged. That is the best I can tell you best of luck.