A problem with battery drain

[Alex Bishop-Thorpe]

I've got a Nikon Super Zoom-8, which is a pretty nice little super-8 camera, but mine suffers from a rather annoying issue. It takes four AA batteries, which last around an hour before they're dead. This is without any use on my part, there's no sort of on/off switch with this camera, but I leave it in the locked position when it's not in use (not sure if that makes any difference, but it's worth a shot) and when I grab it again the batteries are flat. I'm forced to take the batteries out whenever there's a break in shooting, which is both inconvenient and a little silly.

Does anyone have any ideas what would cause four AA batteries to be exhausted in such a short time? I'm assuming there's a fairly simple electronic explenation, but electronics arent really my strong point, and apart from this one problem the thing's a dream to use.

[jnanian]

i have a minolta light/flash meter that does the same thing.
those batteries cost a fortune ...

i take the battery out ..

[David William White]

Measure the resistance between the + and - terminals in the battery compartment, with the switch in the off position. Should be really really high; but if not, there is a drain somewhere. By tracing with a meter, you might be able to isolate where the drain is.

[ic-racer]

I'm not familiar with that system, but some EE (electronic exposure) systems can take a lot of juice to power the auto diaphragm unit. Perhaps your meter is not turning off when the motor stops?

[tiberiustibz]

Most likely there's some switch in there or something else that's shorted.

[John Hermanson]

AA batteries that drain in an hour would be really hot when you took them out of the camera. I bet there's something else wrong with the camera that makes the batteries appear dead when they aren't. John