I had a camera that used Ni-cads. It drove me crazy. It lost power after a few minutes of use. I finally got some instruction on how to use it. When the charge got close to empty there was a setting on the camera that would completely discharge the batteries. Then you put them in the charger. Made a huge difference. But still a pain to use. I called it the "battery factory". I had three compartments for charged, need to discharge and discharged with a half dozen batteries in each compartment.
If I should die before I wake...great,a little more sleep.