Trouble with the battery sticking?

[simonclivehughe]

I noticed when I had to recharge the (original) battery that it didn't want to come out of the camera body. It seems to stick about one-half-inch out of the compartment and I really have to tug it to get it out. It appears (damn hard to see into the chamber) that the frontmost battery contact (in the camera body) has bent up and is not lying flush. I can insert a new battery and it does seat, and the camera works, but I have a feeling that the contact strip might eventually break off, requiring a service call! Has anyone else had this problem?

P.S., this weekend, I really gave the camera a workout on the Olympic Penninsula (WA), with mountains, beach and rainforest. I shot everything RAW, so I've got my work cut out for me to process everything, but from what I've seen so far, I'm really thrilled. I'm especially pleased with the in-camera metering, which seems to yield a really nice picture 90% of the time. Unless it's really difficult lighting, I'm not using my handheld meter at all.

[J. Borger]

Same here with the battery.
I turn it a bit left-right-left-right while pulling it out gently ..... it helps .... but i do not feel confident with this procedure.

Han

[jlw]

The battery on mine behaves the same way. I had assumed this was an intentional feature to keep the battery from falling out when you open the door with the baseplate pointing down.

When I'm home tonight I'll point a flashlight down into the compartment and see if I can see anything weird about the contacts, but I haven't noticed anything wrong with them before.

[simonclivehughe]

Not sure if this makes me feel any better, but I guess we're either all OK or all in trouble!

[Sean Reid]

It's normal.

Sean

[simonclivehughe]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I was really dreading having to surrender this baby to get it fixed. I took a good look into the battery chamber and nothing seems amiss. What a relief!

[fotografz]

It's a good thing.

[jlw]

It's a good thing.

Thank you, Martha, and how do you like that new ankle bracelet?

Seriously, I had a look, and it turns out that this battery behavior is not only normal, but a designed-in feature.

If you look down the battery compartment, you'll see a dark, roughly triangular wire catch about 2/3 of the way down the side. This catch is positioned so that it latches into one of the slots that runs part of the length of the battery. When you open the battery door, the battery slides down until the catch reaches the bottom of the slot; then it holds the battery there until you pull hard enough to overcome the pressure of the spring.

A thoughtful touch, really, since otherwise if you opened the battery door with the bottom of the camera facing downward, the battery would just fall right out! Think of it as a modern version of the Contax II/III takeup spool retaining spring (the one they left off the IIa/IIIa, to the consternation of spool-droppers everywhere!)

Sorry for the slightly blurry pic, but I had a hard time getting any light down the battery compartment AND holding a tiny digicam steady (had to use a tiny one because anything larger blocked the light!)