Which flashes?
Cuddeback's Cuddelink
- Thread starter Peplin Creek
- Start date
Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
Ir and black flash
These are all I can find at the moment and are Strobe and BF. I've deleted most of them. I'f I find one I will post it also.
The strobe camera has tilted down since I put it up. It will actually shines all the way across this plot.
For reference the trees to the furthest left are 44yds per my rangefinder.
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Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
The BF seems to have more contrast than the dual flash.
Those are really bad examples. I apologize. I just deleted most all my deer pics. That strobe is brighter than in that pic. Tilted down and on center exposure is fouling up the lighting.
https://www.cuddeback.com/Updates/CuddeLink.pdf
FredG
5 year old buck +
With any of the IR flash modules (Dual Flash, PH red, PH black) the IR Mode setting in the Commands menu (Close or Far) controls the contrast and the exposure compensation of the image. IR Mode=Far (default) results in a low contrast image with an exposure compensation of approximately -1.3 stops and IR Mode=Close results in a higher contrast image with an exposure compensation of 0.0 stops. Speaking generally, the Far mode gives a 'flat' image with optimal motion blur control and the Close mode gives a more 'pleasing' image with less motion blur control. The PH black image that RRAB58 posted above appears to me to have been shot with the "Close" setting, assuming that no additional contrast was added to the pic via post processing. The best end of both worlds is to shoot in Far mode to get max motion blur control and then add contrast as needed after the fact via post processing to get the most pleasing image... if that added step is warranted by the user.
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Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
Ah that’s good to know. I also edit my images from pretty much all cameras as the default image usually isn’t as good as. I’ve been doing this dual flash and it’s made it more pleasing. I’m debating switching to the PH BF for all my dual units though hoping for just a little better image overall.
I have had cameras out on my property for 51 days now. I love this concept, but starting to lose faith. One camera dead out of box. Cuddeback replaced and down on property to install this weekend. My base cell unit is at my gate and pull in last night and don’t get pics of a truck five yards in front of camera. One camera has went off line once for three days and back on and now off since 12/30/19. Find out what the deal is with it this morning. Meanwhile a buddy’s SPYPOINT is picking up deer at crazy distances. At this point I am glad I only purchased six cameras. I was set to load up enough for a full network, but going to have to see some drastic improvement to get me to shell out more money.
Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
What model cameras do you have and what battery options are you using?
Latest report attached. I have a G-2+ that is currently off line. All on internal batteries. I bought a battery pack for base station and ran into issue of cords not compatible with the K model. They will all get fresh batteries this weekend. Two hour drive to property.
Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
On the camera that drops is it possible it’s losing signal? Or the batteries are at the end of their life? Also you’ll want to upgrade to a external power sources for sure. You‘ll easily double the battery life for each camera. If any are in full sun, solar will do you well. It’s tough to say what’s happening with the one that’s dropping. Keep us posted to what you find.
Definitely not a signal issue. It is very close to home camera. Stays above 90 and usually at 99. Sitting in woods now, but will post after I pull cameras and check on them.
Booner21
5 year old buck +
Go buy the external battery packs for al your cameras it will be the best money you have ever spent speaking from experience especially that distance away from your house.
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So the one that went off line on 12/30 was showing Battery Dead when I pulled it. Back up and working now. Guess the camera report that shows battery OK only shows OK or offline. Was thinking I would see a low battery status before any went dead. Still weird that it was online for 22 days, went dark for 3, and then came back on for 19 more before going dead again. When it came back online after the three days hiatus it started counting battery days at 1 again as if they had been changed. The home unit this morning I literally pulled off the tree and was holding in my hands before it detected motion. Do low batteries drastically affect the detection sensitivity? Thanks for the replies.
What Model camera? Where are you located? What were the temperatures those three days? What batteries were in the camera? AA or Ds?
Southern Illinois. D batteries. Not sure on temps at the time, but could have been a cold spell. Came right back up with the new batteries. All of my cameras are under tree canopy so solar option is out, but looks like external battery packs should be in my future plans. If the network report only shows battery OK or nothing, because the batteries are dead, i don’t know what the point is of telling me the batteries are okay. If it’s online they are okay. If it’s offline batteries are likely dead. I was anticipating a low battery warning.
FredG
5 year old buck +
Usually you will see a 'battery low' signal on your report several days before the batteries go belly up. However, with the Power House flash modules in a G or K model camera you can occasionally go straight from 'battery ok' to dead without a warning. This is due to the super-capacitors in the Power House module hitting the batteries hard to refresh when the battery charge is at or near the 'ok' to 'low' threshold. Just for the sake of explanation (I don't remember the precise voltage where the batteries die or flop from ok to low), but let's just say that at 5.2 volts the indicator switches from 'ok' to 'low... and at 4.8 volts the batteries are considered dead and the system shuts down. So if you're battery voltage is floating along at 5.21 volts (still reading 'ok') and the capacitors need recharging the caps will put a short term demand on the batteries of slightly over 0.4 volts. If this is enough to cause your batteries to read less than 4.8 volts the camera can shut itself down. It's clearly a premature shut-down because the battery voltage would have popped back up after the recharge, but it can shut down none the less. It's happened to me on occasion and I'm sure to others. I think there needs to be a little more tolerance built into the controlling firmware to allow for the short term hits of the super-caps... perhaps this has already been addressed via firmware update or maybe not.
Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
To add on to this as well. If you have the dual bank external pack connected you’ll atleast be able to tell when batteries switch over from external to the internal batteries. That should give you plenty of time to plan accordingly and put new batteries in the external.
