It's a Fujifilm J38 digital camera. It worked fine for about 6 months, then one day i was taking pictures with it, and tried to Zoom in on something, and as soon as i hit the zoom button it beeped, and Said "Zoom error" and it had a red ! next to it. I was unable to take pictures with it until i turned it off and back on again. It works fine except when i try to zoom. Can anyone help me with this?

I've had a Fujifilm camera for about 5years now and have always had problems with keeping batteries charged for it...so i started using regular AA batteries...is this hard on my camera? Is there a certain kind of battery that doesnt wear out as fast? Is there something i can do to keep them from wearing down? I hardly look at my pics after i take them just to reserve the battery so i dont think thats it... help...