What is your favorite trail cam and why?
- Thread starter Telemark
- Start date
They might keep going. I have been buying Brownings for five years and never had one quit that didnt go under water - knock on wood. Camera dependability has improved quite a bit over the past ten years - as has battery life, picture quality, and dependability.
As far as using cameras to make management decisions, I dont know what would be lost by using a setup with some of the more dependable $150 cameras. Picture quality, dependability, battery life, and options to shoot multiple bursts, time lapse, video, etc provide options not seen on many cameras ten years ago. Plus, the ability to afford more cameras to provide better coverage. I often now put two or three cameras on a two acre food plot and it is amazing the difference in deer that one camera may take compared to the others. The current crop of cameras doesnt leave you quite so weak kneed when you find someone else decided to take four of them home, shoot some of them, or flooding ruins four or five in one day. We have killed one mature buck in the last ten years that we did not have multiple pictures of - so I dont believe we are missing many of them.
Now, for strictly hunting purposes - I could see where receiving all your pictures from all your cameras before going on a hunt would help you decide which area to concentrate your efforts. And I do understand if you are a long drive away and very intermittent visitor to your deer woods - it would prevent trips just to check game cameras. I live on my property, and I am not one that believes staying out of the woods during the off season provides an advantage. I am in my woods doing something almost every day - duck hunting, trapping, hog hunting, coon hunting, dove and squirrel hunting, working food plots, and just riding around looking- and my bucks dont seem to relocate to other properties.
I do think if the cuddelink system could ever get the bugs worked out - it might be a good compromise between all of it. I am waiting a while longer to buy into that one, though.
j-bird
Moderator
Thus far I like my brownings.... I don't pay more than $100 for a cam so getting decent quality and life from a cam in that price range can be difficult....but thus far I am pleased with the brownings. I also only use lithium batteries in a cam and I use video 100% over pictures in mine. I have low enough deer numbers that I can use video for a month and still not fill up the SD card....and thats on a mineral site!
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
The problem with the cameras in that $150 class is reliability and QC. Most are Chinese built and one guy gets a solid one and the next guy gets a dud off the line. Features and picture quality are not an issue in this class. They are great. Folks have put cameras in that class next to Reconyx and the number of pictures can be dramatically more. Without similar testing, you don't know what you are missing. I've seen some cameras where the triggering varies greatly with conditions. These cameras are probably dependable enough for baited surveys and triggering is less important in this setting. I don't use bait for a variety of reasons. Instead I use a high density of true black flash cameras with no noise. Flashes visible by deer and noise from mechanical lenses bias data. Trying to collect data from the high density of cameras manually also presents a problem. Few if any cell based cameras transmit full resolution pictures. The decimate them and you still have the recurring cost of the plan. If 5G changes the economics this may change. Manually checking cameras also introduces some bias in the data.
There is a big difference when developing datasets for QDM or research projects compared to scouting for hunting. I don't use my network for dynamic hunting purposes. I know my land well enough to know where I want to be when I'm hunting. Some of this comes from the cameras over time watching trends, but most comes from being on the land itself. I do use my cameras for security purposes as well.
Thanks,
Jack
4wanderingeyes
5 year old buck +
I run about 8-10 cameras on 25 acres, 3 of which are security cameras, but do catch a lot of wildlife as well. I use a mixture of Browning, and Covert for cell cams, all cameras with black flash. I couldnt imagine, wanting more data then those 10 cameras give me on any daily basis. sorting through hundreds of pictures a couple times a day is more then enough for me. I can tell their travel direction, times of day they eat in plots, travel trails, and when, and where they are bedding. It gets a little more exciting closer to deer season, but when you already spend an hour a day flipping through hundreds of pictures of the same deer moving from one area to the next, it can get less then exciting throughout the year. Especially when you dont go through your pictures for a couple days, and you have a backlog of deer, coon, and bear to sort through. Everyonce in awhile I will catch a neighbor, or a critter that isnt usual, but it is pretty much the same thing, day in, and day out, 340 days a year, the rut does change things up a bit.
I have used $29 Wildgame Innovations and high end Reconyx. I have put different cameras side by side on numerous occasions. What I have found, is no sub $100 camera I have ever tried is dependable a consistent. But, there is still a purpose for those cameras in my Arsenal - for bear baiting where I worry about the bear eating them, on publc land where I worry about them going home with someone else, and in highly flood prone areas where they may become inundated. I have put $150 Brownings side by side with $500 reconyx. The Brownings dont miss any deer the reconyx get, but the brownings may have more pictures of no game - not sure if it is wind or sun that causes that. I have used a number of other mid priced cameras that take as good or better pictures than the brownings and dont miss deer either - but I have used no other mid priced ($100 to $200) that has proven as dependable for me. I have watched deer numerous times in a one acre food plot feed for 30 minutes and not be on camera - including reconyx. It is not because the camera is not working - it is because the deer is not getting in front of the camera. The only way to combat that is multiple cameras. A lot of my hunting ground is flat bottom land - and deer tend to wander more. I hunt an area by a beanfield that is 1/4 mile long where it adjoins woods. I was hunting a large buck one time. Flat as a pancake mature woods. At one time, I had 18 cameras along that 1/4 mile - public ground - trying to pattern that deer going to the beans. I got pictures of him going and coming 32 times in three weeks. No camera got more than three pictures of him out of the 32 pics. I cant afford to put 18 reconyx out at one time on public ground. One thing I have proven - at least to myself - As far as getting pictures of my different bucks - I am far better of with a lot of mid priced cameras as compared to half as many high dollar cameras.
The point to all this - If all I did was deer hunt private property, that never flooded and was confident no one was ever going to steal a camera - that is one thing. But, I dont. I hunt private adjacent to public where I have had four cameras stolen in one night. I own and hunt a lot of bottom land where a freak afternoon thunderstorm can put four or five feet of water on dry geound overnight. I lose two or three cameras a year to flooding. I bear hunt - bears like cameras. I hunt a lot of public ground. I put corn out for hog and coon hunting - you dont need a $500 camera on a corn pile with a black flash and super trigger speed.
You have to identify your needs. If your needs are static and fixed like Jack’s, you might select one type system. If your needs are all over the map - your camera selection might be all over the map.
The point to all this - If all I did was deer hunt private property, that never flooded and was confident no one was ever going to steal a camera - that is one thing. But, I dont. I hunt private adjacent to public where I have had four cameras stolen in one night. I own and hunt a lot of bottom land where a freak afternoon thunderstorm can put four or five feet of water on dry geound overnight. I lose two or three cameras a year to flooding. I bear hunt - bears like cameras. I hunt a lot of public ground. I put corn out for hog and coon hunting - you dont need a $500 camera on a corn pile with a black flash and super trigger speed.
You have to identify your needs. If your needs are static and fixed like Jack’s, you might select one type system. If your needs are all over the map - your camera selection might be all over the map.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
This is what it all boils down to. Matching characteristics to your application and situation....Sounds like food plots doesn't it...
[/QUOTE]indiana boy
Yearling... With promise
I honestly dont think they are bad. For what it is worth though I have not ran them on wide open areas to test the flash range. Mine are currently on mineral sites and mock scrapes set at least 6 feet in the air and angled down. Have you done the firmware update and running lithium??
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
Running lithium never updated.
BassPro flyer yesterday shows their trade in deals coming up. Also, that Spypoint mini-link has dropped to $119 ($99 with trade in). That is too cheap not to test one out for me. I normally get fewer than 100 pics per month per camera so it is free. Really cheap for a cellular. I wonder how low prices can go for these things....
Academy had them for $108 after tax. Several folks I know got one of them. 50% took them back for a variety of reasons - 50% OK - so far. I got one but havent put it out yet.
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
I did the firmware update and put the camera out. I checked it this weekend and the pictures arent any different. The update mentioned it was for battery consumption reasons. This camera has been in a valley all year so it does get heavy/foggy air but the night pictures are still a complete joke.
indiana boy
Yearling... With promise
That’s to bad. Might be worth getting ahold of them.
