[Recovered Thread: 54151]

[kybernaut]

Hi,

all in all I'm pretty happy with my DC4800. It's not the "latest and greatest" but it is capable of very good pictures.

One thing really annoys me is, that I can't use the display when the battery is below a certain charge level (half battery icon in the display). I don't understand why Kodak didn't make this user adjustable. I have a spare battery with me, so I don't care about battery drain.

Is there possibly a firmware hack for this problem?? I'm using v1.04 at the moment.

It would be interesting to hear from other DC4800 users (do they even still exist??)

cheers,

kybernaut

[cwodave]

Yes there are still a couple of us out here. lol Although I have gone up to a DX7590. I still use my DC4800. I don't seem to have the problem you have. when my display goes out for low battery it seems the battery is really too low to make the camera wor. So I just slip in my spare battery and keep on shooting. It does sound like m aybe yours is turning off the display a little early and I don;t have any idea how to fix that.

Have you tried asking at the Kodak.com support/forums?

Dave

[DGehman]

Have you e-mailed Kodak? I've gotten one or two cogent replies from real people to questions, and they might be able to tell you how the camera measures battery capacity -- voltage? amperage? special circuitry in the battery?

The answer might give some clues (e.g., circuitry = something going wrong in the battery electronics).

Also, since this is power-related, have you tried cleaning the battery and camera contacts?

Dave

[kybernaut]

thanks for your replies.

The problem is that the "half battery" icon appears pretty early, sometimes after 15 or 20 pictures. I noticed that there is still a lot of power left in the battery (I still can take loads of pictures without LCD or use the review mode to watch existing ones).

I emailed Kodak about it, but they did let me know that phone and email support for my product has ended.

Any other ideas?

[DGehman]

kybernaut wrote:

I emailed Kodak about it, but they did let me know that phone and email support for my product has ended.
Any other ideas?

Not gracious of them. The battery engineer is unlikely to have died of old age in 3-4 years.

For the heck of it, I Googled groups for "DC4700 battery" and a bunch of complaints like yours appeared, beginning in 2000 and still appearingthis year.

Maybe an external battery pack via the DC in jack?

Of course, there's the option fornew(er) camera... but it would be hard to find 28mm equivalent at the wide angle end of the zoom + external flash connector + easy f/stop setting, all of which you seem to have.

Dave