Hi Cathy, welcome to the Sony Forums

Those older AA battery cameras do eventually become very fussy about residual battery power. Basically the camera can't perform important power-hungry tasks like retract the lens with insufficient battery, so it's programmed to switch off long before the batteries lose all their charge.

I believe there's something in the camera firmware that governs this safeguard and it can become slightly corrupted by using different battery types. You can try a couple of things but tbh I can't quite recall if the second one is possible...

First, remove the batteries for a couple of days, preferably longer, to fully discharge all residual internal power. Then re-insert a brand new pair of alkaline batteries and power up.

If that doesn't work, it may be possible to format the internal memory.

Let me know how you get on and I'll try to find out the internal format procedure in the meantime.

Cheers

Mick

You should try a 'new' SLR, they really rock

If you've stored the camera you've clearly had the batteries out for a good while, so that's not going to help.

If it's possible to format the internal memory, you should be able to do so the same way as you would format a memory card. In this case, remove the memory card and turn the camera on, then press the Menu button and navigate to [set-up] and you may be able to select [internal memory tool], or get an option to format the internal memory. If you do, you'll get a warning, press to ok that, then switch off, insert your memory card, power up and see if it's any better.

I'm hopeful this will be possible but apologies in advance if it's not, or if it fails to do the trick. I described the camera as 'older' purely because of these power-based foibles which seem to have been an unforseen side-issue with AA battery use. All 'modern' compacts use rechargeable lithium cells to get around the issue you've come across. Unfortunately a great many fell into disuse as a result.

Good luck

Mick