Double, were your first pics out of the cam in cold weather? If so, I think that is causing the problems. My cuddeback took horrible pics in cold weather, but when the weather woarmed up it worked great. I get around 2.5 months on one set of batteries. I like it, but the cold weather pics stink with blue lines in them. Rumor has it, non-typical will replace it, but I have not called them to test that theory out.