Canon rebel XS batttery Issues

[foxalive]

I dont use camera that often. That being said I havent used my camera much. may be I have taken 2K pics at most in th epast 1 year. But I started having issues with the battery that came with Canon very soon after owning the camera. I thought may be battery is becoming weak so I ordered a new one. Now new one worked fine for some timee and now that also loses charge even after taking like 20 pics. I will see green light or full battery indicator on the camera screen and next thing I see is that it has red light. 

Battery charger - When I put the batttery for charging the red light stays on for 20 secs and than goes away. Should I see the light indicator on charger at all times or ust at the begining. And ofcourse even after putting it to charge, it wont charge. 

I am going crazy. Please help if anyone had similar issues. I am not able to pin point the issue. Thanks so much. 

[Skirball]

Yes, the light on the charger should stay on the entire time until it's done.  I can't remember for my 400D if there's a green light when it's done or it just goes out.  I want to say it just goes out.

Are you using official Canon batteries or third party stuff.  If it's Canon then something is definitely wrong, and I suspect your charger.  But that doesn't explain your camera showing full then empty.  I find it unlikely you have bad batteries and a bad charger.  Which suggests to me that either the charger is ruining the batteries, or maybe it’s a camera issue (and the batteries aren’t actually dead, hence your charger turning off right away).

[diverhank]

I think it's got to do with the charger and not the batteries, based on what you described.  It's a case of the battery charger lying to you that a battery has been fully charged when it's not.  This happened to me with my Canon 50D charger.  I'd stick a battery in then it would charge it for about 5 mins then the light goes green but in fact the battery is near empty.  I would remove replace a couple times before it would properly charge.  It happens a lot more often with after market batteries but it would do the same for genuine Canon batteries too.  It gets to a point that I make sure the battery is being charged for at least an hour otherwise remove replace until it does.  I haven't tried cleaning the contacts with an eraser but that's a good idea...