Lets Talk About Duracells 

We started a new review on one of the new Bushnell cameras that take 4 of the D sized cells. It is our policy to try to start each review using regular alkaline batteries and keep them in the camera during the review until they run all the way down and the camera is no longer taking pictures. This will give us an idea of battery life. With this particular camera which uses a LED indicator to flash when the batteries are drained. This indicator came on in less than 12 hours into the review. I immediately thought that we had another battery eating cam on our hands. I had purchased from Home Depot several D8 packs with an expected shelf life date to 2013. I had pulled 4 of the eight in the pack to put in the camera for the review. When the low battery indicator came on I removed those batteries and installed the remaining four batteries from this same pack. The battery indicator immediately came on again. Now I suspect the camera has a faulty indicator. To prove this I immediately removed the last four batteries and used my battery tester to confirm that they were in top condition. What I found was one of the four batteries was defective and gave a near zero voltage reading. I then tested the first four batteries and also found that one of the four was bad. Try to take a 8 pack of batteries back to Home Depot and say they are defective. You will see the eyebrows go up and get that “yea sure” look of doubt. In the remaining batteries that I had on hand I found one more bad battery. I purchased two more $8.68 packs and tested them and all were good. Was this a fluke, or is there a quality control issue at Duracell? This we do not know but if I had not taken the time to find out that camera would have been sent back to Bushnell and we would have kept on thinking that the ole copper tops were above suspicion.