For an SLR I can understand it. But not for a P&S where accessories are where they make most of their money.
True but UB was talking about DSLR’s, we’ve wandered a little off topic 
Here you go; web retailer offering an iPhone mount/case to allow you to use Canon or Nikon lenses.
The add-on inflation I mentioned wasn’t dslr specific. Perhaps I need to hang out in more reputable camera stores. Of course, I’d then end up spending more money I don’t have on camera stuff.
I have a gripped DSLR, and although I very rarely run out of batteries I got to use the AA tray that comes with it once, I have to say I was not impressed, the camera drained those batteries in no time, while I could go two weeks of daily shooting with an extra battery in the grip.
I have a pocket Canon that uses AA (I don’t want to lug around a heavy DSLR all the time, and I always have a camera on me), I haven’t got rid of it because I use it very little, but I am really annoyed by the battery use.
That does not make any sense whatsoever. Unless buyers are into spending money for no reason.
Which is fine, lots money spent on photographic equipment is required in my religion.
I’ve been burned with so called longer lasting LiIon batteries. I had a serviceable Kodak P&S back in the day. 4MP, 4x optical zoom, viewfinder, powered by 2 AAs. Well I wanted something with a better optical zoom, and I liked Kodak’s methods-of-work, so I looked at their newer cameras. Well they had a nice model that had all that I wanted (in fact I bought one for my step-daughter).
After she put it through its paces, I decided I’d get one. Sorry! They no longer make it and no one had it anymore. Their “replacement” model had no viewfinder and now used a Li-Ion battery . Against my better judgement I went for it. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been fucked by the battery dying on me at extremely inopportune moments.
Maybe the camera is defective, because if I charge the battery fully, and let it sit in the camera, the damn thing is dead within a month. I though these batteries were supposed to retain their charges? I refuse to spend the money on a second battery as a backup because I have no confidence in that retaining it’s charge either.
At least AAs hold up.
So now I’m in the market for a new camera. I may bite the bullet and go back to an SLR (I happily enjoyed my Canon AE-1 for 20 odd years). But I suspect that there are no SLRs that use AAs.
It sounds like something is wonky with your equipment. Maybe you have a faulty battery or maybe your camera is draining the battery. Charge your battery and leave it outside your camera for a month. Check the charge when you plug it back in at the end of the month. If the charge is gone, it’s likely a bad battery. If the charge is full, likely your camera is slowly draining the battery.
My Canon will hold a charge for months.
I’m a DSLR user, and I like propitiatory batteries, in fact, I wish my Canon speedlites used them as well. (I’ve got four cameras, and they all use the same type of battery.)
Back when I was shooting for the schools, I used to carry four to six sets of AA rechargables. Unlike the casual shooter though, I’d be swapping out a set of batteries long before they were dead; I’d replace a set when the recycle time on the flash was longer than fifteen seconds (because when you’re shooting groups of kids the last thing you want is to give them enough time to drop their pose).
Since the speedlite took four, it was always a pain to pop out the used set, pocket them, remove the rubber band from the new set and replace them (two pos up, two pos down) with my set-up on a tripod. Slipping in a single cell would have been sooooooo much easier and quicker.
I also only have the Canon-branded batteries that came with the cameras, my other six are third-party (with a higher Mah rating as well).
Sounds like an experiment that I will have to perform. Thanks for the idea.
This is nothing new. I’ve never had a digital camera that took AA batteries. All of them that I’ve owned going back to when they were first on the market had proprietary batteries with chargers.
Actually, it is rather new. AA batteries were much more common for digital cameras years ago, but in recent years they have diminished in numbers. The larger cameras, that have mainly used AAs now tend to use bigger LiIon proprietary batteries today. The trend is likely to continue.
I had Sony cameras until recently, and they all had proprietary batteries. Not even the same proprietary battery, but different ones from camera to camera. Damn Sony.
The early H-series and W-series, the U, P, and S series all used AA batteries. The last Sony released with AA batteries was the S2100 in Jan 2010. There used to be more options, not so many these days.
I have 2 P&S cameras, Fuji & Canon and 3 & 4 batteries for each respectively. Thy are for one handed shooting from a moving motorcycle & carry around. I always have a camera with me. My cell phone is a phone.
I have a big Fuji fake SLR that uses AA’s. I use alkaline, Ni, Lith & anything else I can make work… I carry charged spare batteries anytime there is an even remoter chance I’ll run short of power.
My wheels, my phones, my bikes, my cameras all will be dead if I let them sit for a month. But that is just me.
Great pictures need talent. I do not have that. But pretty darn good takes big, good glass, not megapixels. & Kodachrome 25 slide film.
In the digital world it still takes big & good glass. IMO.
Power for me is something I can plan around & I do not have to do what the school kid guys or the tourist shooting guys who need to do many hundreds a day have to day after day.
My Cannon & my Fuji charger only take on place it I am on an end plug.
My cell phone wart takes up 2 no matter where unless it is a single connection extension cord.
So far & IMO, I’ll never let the power source be the determining factor about getting the right camera for the job I want it to do.
Batteries are getting better all the time.
If a person goes a month without taking a picture, then quality of the picture is not as important as the power source IMO.
YMMV
You obviously aren’t aren’t on Facebook. I get tired of all the underexposed, out of focus camera phone pictures. Any P&S will shoot rings around camera phones, even the iphone 4s.
Lousy photographers will take lousy pictures with a multi thousand dollar DSLR too.
My phone now has a better camera than my first THREE digital cameras. It works great for quick snapshots - and it’s always in my purse. I wouldn’t use it for anything I’m going to print, but I print a very small subset of pictures anyway.
My old Sony pocket camera took AA’s, my new one takes a LiIon. At first I was bummed that I would have pony up for a second “special” battery to have a spare, but was pleasantly surprised to find that it was the same model battery as used in my GoPro video camera. I already had a spare. 
Not in the hands of a crappy photographer it won’t. As stated, the most important part of the photography process is the eye and skill of the photographer. Equipment is just a tool. Granted you can do some things with better tools that you can’t do with crappy ones, but a good photog can take good pictures with anything.
I wonder if that’s really the case, though. you HAVE seen the results the itty bitty lens and sensor packages in modern phones are generating, haven’t you?
Sure, you can’t do a two page glossy print from them, but they run rings around my point n shoot of 5 years ago…and in certain overlapping areas, take as good a shot as my Nikon d50. (better if you consider HDR and hidef video capture)
I can’t tell you the last time I printed a photo…which means the resolution and light capturing just has to be sufficient for a 1600x1200 image after cropping and adjustment.
The iPhone’s weakness is a lack of zoom, which anyone who’s taken any photography classes knows, should be used as little as possible.
Does it REPLACE my DSLR? Heck naw. But it compliments it well, and is with me 24x7.
Phones are taking better pictures, but the quality loss in pretty noticeable from a good P&S camera. IMO, phones are taking the place of the lower end cameras where the goal is to put images on the web for casual use or capture a night out with friends. A P&S like the Canon S100 will seriously outperform any current phone camera before you get into the manual controls. It has a much bigger sensor which means cleaner images and vastly better low light performance, and the fast lens just amplifies those strengths.
Cameras on phones will certainly kill the low end P&S camera. There is a market for dedicated small cameras that will remain for a while. And once you start using a big optical zoom phones are unlikely to compete due to the size required. That may change but not in the near future.
There is a difference between taking snapshots and composing photos. A good photog can work with any tools, but the limitations of a phone will be apparent. Most people only need something that can take snapshots and they have more and better choices today than ever in the history of photography.