New Trail Cams

[cohunter14]

Just bought two new Bushnell VGA Trail Cameras from Natchez. At $50 each, I couldn\'t resist. They had some pretty decent reviews, so we\'ll see what happens. I\'ll try to do some tinkering once I get them and report back. Planning on dropping them out in the woods in a couple weeks :upthumb:

 

[iccyman001]

Good luck, Derek!


I look forward to the results.

 

[F M]

Nice Derek we need some more elk pics to get me more pumped up. :upthumb:

 

[cohunter14]

I can\'t promise I will be retrieving pics before my hunt in October, but if I do I will be sure to post them up here!

 

[cohunter14]

Didn\'t get a chance to do a full review for you all yet, but what I can tell you is that these things are small! I am pretty impressed with the size and weight of these cameras. Throwing them out tomorrow afternoon, so we\'ll see what happens. I am hoping to get a chance to retrieve some pics from them before our hunt in October, but not sure if that\'ll happen or not yet.

 

[iccyman001]

Derek,

do you have any dogs or anything?
If I were you, I would place them in front of a dog pen or dog area to make sure the camera works.


The worst way to check if a camera works is to leave it in the woods and check a few weeks later.
If it doesn\'t work, then you miss out on pictures :downthumb:

 

[cohunter14]

Dan, unfortunately I don\'t. I am planning on doing some practice runs with me on the camera though after I set them up. Takes a few extra minutes, but it\'s worth it. I suppose I could have done that before putting them out, but didn\'t really think of it...oh well. Hopefully they\'ll be good to go!

 

[iccyman001]

Angles angles angles!!!!!!!


Just make sure it\'s set up for the optimal angle to trigger it off.
We always double check ours.

 

[colorado russ]

Just purchased 2 new cameras and hope to put out next week. I\'ve been doing a ridiculous amount of research on these so if anyone is in the market for trail cameras then I can offer up some good site/reviews.

The 2 things that I never paid enough attention to are the Trigger Speed and more importantly the Recovery Time. Trigger speed is how long it takes the camera to detect something and take the picture. Recovery time is how long it takes the camera to be ready to take the next picture.

My old cameras have like a 1.5 second trigger and 10 second recovery - both of which are super slow by all accounts. CAVEAT: Just fine if you\'re positioned over a feeder but won\'t work well on a trail to capture game walking by. One of the cameras I reviewed had under a second recovery time but that caused the battery life to be much shorter because the camera never really \'sleeps\' - it\'s always on and ready.

Here\'s what I ordered. I hadn\'t \"found\" the Browning Range Ops until after I put in my bid on Ebay for the Stealth Cam. So, I\'ll have 4 different brands out this fall - Wildgame Innovations Razor M6, Moultrie D-55 IRXT and the 2 below.

Stealth Cam G42C 10MP and 42 LEDs .34 second trigger speed and 2.1 second recovery time. $109 incl S&H

Browning Range Ops BTC-1XR 8MP and 30 LEDs .67 trigger speed and 2.1 second recory time. $83 incl S&H

I\'ll try to get some picture updates and evaluate the 4 cameras in a few weeks.

 

[Baby Huey]

Russ, looking forward to the reviews of your camreas! I had some Cabela\'s points and this unit was on sale ($109 sale price from $149), so I picked it up. It is in use in the woods, so likely sometime in mid to late August that I will get to look at the photos:

Cabela\'s Outfitter? 8MP IR HD Trail Camera

? 8MP or 5MP image resolution
? Records in 720p resolution, 16-fps video resolution
? 850nm IR LED
? 80-ft. illumination range
? 85-ft. detection range
? 1 +/- 0.2-second trigger speed
? Takes up to three images in burst mode

 

[colorado russ]

That looks like a pretty good camera too Roman. What I couldn\'t find is the recovery time for that model. Trigger speed .8 to 1.2 seconds is above average. I\'ve seen quite a few with 1.5 second trigger speed with a 10 second recovery time and feel those might miss some animals on a game trail or just part of the animal.

Don\'t get me wrong - some people just want to know an animal came by, what time, temp and moon phase. Myself, I\'d like to know if 2,3 or 4 animals came by so I can judge numbers.

I\'ve used my Wildgame and Moultrie ones before but mainly on a feeder and they both work great, produce quality pictures and good battery life. For trails, I point them parallel to the trail and not perpendicular to catch as they\'re approaching or leaving instead of crossing in front of the camera.

It will be a few weeks before I can do any comparisons but getting pictures now on the 2 currently out in the field.

 

[colorado russ]

You know, there\'s something about eating humble pie that just doesn\'t taste good! Here I am bragging about all of the research and trigger/recovery time but overlooked a MAJOR thing on the Stealth Cam G42C model. It has WHITE IR emitters. So, a bright flash goes off instead of a glowing red IR! What a bonehead!

Set my 2 new cameras up last night to check and that\'s when I noticed my ignorance. Granted, the Stealth Cam triggered fast and recovered super fast - it was like the paparazzi taking flash pictures every 2 seconds!!

So, I have to pay a restocking fee along with shipping for my blunder. Only about $15-20 so could\'ve been much worse.

 

[Baby Huey]

Russ, that sucks! Easy to overlook a couple things when you are analyzing multiple items!