Got a Ricoh 4200-how many pics should I be able to take on a charge of NiMHbatteries before they belly-up. How does this compare to other brands of digicams of this type & price range?

-- Ron Noone (noone@adamswells.com), May 16, 1999

Answers

I'm not sure, but I do recall seeing reviews of the Ricoh's and other early 3X zoom cameras like them, where new users complained of very short battery lifetimes when I was considering one. See: http://www.pcphotoforum.com/dc/reviews/user_reviews/rdc_4200/ for some of the reviews I found. From these reviews it does OK with NiMHs, but seems to kill Alkalines really quickly. Somewhat typical of any backlit active LCD display device, and with the zoom motor forget about long battery life. My PDR-M1 doesn't do too well on alkalines, but it gets over 200 shots with the flash and the LCD turned on(of course, I don't have an optical zoom.) I couldn't find any data on current requirements of the 4200, but I did do a search on Ricoh's site for "4200 battery" and turned up the following quote:

"The RDC-2 & the RDC-2E camera does not use the battery power available. The camera needs a full five volts in order to run. A suggestion would be to save the batteries and use them in smaller devices such as a pager that does not require a full battery."

Now I realize that's not the 4200 model, but perhaps they used a similar design in later models as well. My NiMHs typically charge to about 1.42 volts and the voltage drops to about 1.13 before my camera(PDR-M1) quits. The other possibility is that between the motorized zoom and having to leave the LCD on for a viewfinder the camera probably tends to use a lot of current.

It would make things much simpler if manufacturers started publishing some data about current consumption under normal operating conditions. On a side note the 4300 comes with NiMHs. Maybe they're making an effort to tell their customers something without trashing their own design... :-)

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), May 17, 1999.

I meant to say my PDR-M1 doesn't do too well on alkalines, but it gets over 200 shots with LCD and flash turned on using Nexcell NiMHs.

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), May 17, 1999.

See: http://www.ricoh-cameras.co.uk/forum/

and do a search for RDC4200 Power problem and it then read the replies.

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), May 17, 1999.