Thanks, Trailrunner, I thought that the Canon website info sounded too good to be true! And thanks for all the great tips and for the site reference for Thomas Distributing. I'll get a charger and some rechargeable batteries (better for around home, anyway) and do a bunch of experimenting. That's disappointing that they lose juice over time! I'll get the batteries you recommended.

In the meantime, I'll spend a lot more time with the instruction book and learn how to turn off the LED screen. As I mentioned, it's useless in sunlight anyway. The viewfinder isn't all that great (smaller area than the actual picture) but I can crop once I've uploaded the images to my computer.

In the meantime, back to the original topic--we'll all wait for a solar recharger that works! If anyone can invent a nice lightweight one, I will be one of the earliest in line!