The $50 Digital Trail Cam!

[petey]

Before I left for a family vacation to Disney World a couple weeks ago I had to run over to Walmart and pick up a few essentials for the trip. Now I'll be the first to say I hate Walmart, but as I was walking past the sporting good section I saw a big $50 sign and a bunch of trail cameras hanging below the sign. That caught my attention so I walked on over and grabbed one to look at it. It was a Wildgame Innovations 1.3MP...I figured heck 1.3 Mega-Pixels..this thing's a piece of crap so I kept on walking. The next day I was talking to a buddy at work and guess what? He bought one and said he put it out the night before. He told me he would have pictures to show me the quality by the time I got back from vacation.

So a week later, I'm back and he said, "Hey I got those pictures for ya!" So he brought in his SD card and we brought the pictures up on my laptop. I then brought up the pictures from my 4MP Moultree Flash camera....The Wildgame Innovations had a better picture quality! So that got me to thinking...how can that be? 1.3 MP better than 4 MP on BEST quality? I always wondered as my Sony Sybershot set at 3.2MP takes about a 2.5MB sized picture and the moultree is spitting out pictures about 700KB.

Definitely the lense or something, b/c that day I went out and picked up 2 of the WI 3.1MP cameras. I figured $50, what the heck. I'm more apt to put that out there and it won't hurt too much if it gets stolen. Not like a $300 camera anyhow. Case in point I guess...just b.c they are spouting off like 4,5,even 7 MP game cameras, it doesn't mean you're gonna get the quality.

BTW, here's a pic of the new camera at 1.3MP (me in the Disney Shirt) and a pic taken about 100 yards away with the Moutree.

Downfalls to the 1.3?
No burst of pictures, it only takes 1 pic every 30, 45 sec, 1 min or 2 min
Trigger speed is descent, but not the fastest
Takes c-Cell batteries, so no clue of the lifespan
Also takes 3, 1.2V watch batteries for the date/time
Only handles 2GB SD card, which ends up being like 2000 or so odd pics

Anyone else see this deal and bite on it? Your opinions on this cost effective camera?

Here's the camera http://www.wildgameinnovations.com/products/s2.html
except it's a S1.3 instead of the S2.0

[bigbrother]

Is that a sasquatch???? Hey I know everyone likes their picture taken but lets see some pics of bucks from that thing! I'm jealous because by the time I got to Walmart...they were sold out! Just my luck.

[petey]

What about a bear?

Actually the result is in. After about 2-3 weeks of being out I'm of the mind ya all save your money. I'm getting about 1/3rd of the pictures that trip. The other 2/3rds are either completely black or white or missed the deer completely from slow trigger speeds. I've come to the determination that it's really only good for setting over fields or places with food sources or scrapes, etc... Some place where the deer will hang out for a bit.

It detects movement quick enough, but the "wake-up" time is too slow. Definately not the camera to be putting on game trails deep in the woods, unless you're point up or down the trail.

They work to a point, but they are limited. I've had my two in all different kinds of scenarios. They work in some, but not all set ups. My Moultree is rock solid in any set-up. I'll pay the extra $50 for that alone.

[petey]

By the way, here's that same bear about a mile away and 4 days later on my property, taken by the Moultree.

[bigbrother]

I still think the newer Moultrie's are better than the ones that are a couple or 3 years old. Wake up and trigger speed is better (2 old and 1 new camera in the woods in same type of scenarios). The only bad thing is the night time flash distance. Daytime pics are great though.

[skeeter@ccia.com]

Petey...how big do you figure that bear is?... some of the blank photos I get with the trail cam turns out to be chipmonks..and a few tree rats out for a quick grag of feed...nice photos