When I bought it Saturday night, I did try it with eight brand new batteries. When it didn't work, I took the batteries out of my Reconyx that did work and the same thing happened in the new Covert camera. I ended up returning it on Sunday and bought a Bushnell Trophy Cam. When I brought it home I put the orginal eight batteries in that I used in the Covert camera and they worked fine. It was very frustrating considering I live about 60 minutes from the store one way, however I'm happy that problem happened now and not in a few months.