over the past 20+ yrs of using trail cam's I have had a lot of makes and models , some quieter than others, some worked a lot better than others too or just lasted longer
price tag alone never meant better over the yrs, I have seen all ends of$$$ break and fail
for me anymore, I want cam's with good trigger speeds and good battery life, I can live with some noise, as honestly my critters up here don;t seem to care , if anything, it makes them curious and I get more pic;s of them inspecting what made the sounds, and get close ups of them LOL
I am in a very high bear area as well, and , if I do my part(keep hands scent free as possible ) when checking cam's I never have any issue's
yrs back I had a few cams eaten and figured out they were more interested in smelling what was on my hands , than the cam making sounds, and from about May till Dec, I tend to get bears on cam daily! many times 20-40 pic's a day, bears seem to love my place, with all my variety of food plots, fruit tree's, grapes and assorted other things they seem to enjoy! and quite honestly, I think they feel pretty safe here, I find them sleeping in my yard rather often
and every single spring/early summer, I witness at least 3 different bears mating here
I do get a lot of bear scratching on some of my tree's where males seem to try and mark the place as there's
but so many bears in this area, few seem to honor the markings, when the girls are here! LOL
now as for trail cam's that send pic's to your email or phones?
I'm going to say I don't have a ton of experience with the new one's
but many yrs back I had the first series of them cams, I still have a molturie set up, it was designed to send pic' s to email, and it did so, but it was terrible, it would suck down a set of batteries in about 12 pictures sent, even with a solar panel set up on it, a remote battery,set up and solar would last me about 50 pic's and dead battery's again!
it was just terrible and pic quality wasn't good either, I then went to a Buckeye cam(or maybe before I forget)
that worked a TON better, but very costly , I had 2, then one got stolen, and then a third, and that one got shot by some Jacka$$ trespassing!
the costs of them for me with such high trespassing issue's just couldn;t justify using them
I am now using a lot of the cheaper cam's and having very good luck with some of the Wildgame Innovations Cloak models of I think all 4 or 6 MP(might have one that is 8mp)
but been getting them for like 42 bucks with batteries and a SD card
for me a super deal if you do the math on battery's and sd card
and so far every one has been working 356/24/7 for the past 2-3 yrs now, in my YARD< where no one steals em !
in dead of winter and heat of summer, and I will honestly say I average about 200-400 pic's a week off every cam, some a LOT more than others, and I get about 6+ months out of battery's on these models so far!
but most of these cheap like cams, for me last about 3 yrs then fail after that, maybe one or two that made it to a 5 yr mark,, but costs is worth it IMO
I will actually say I have been very impressed with them, as to higher end cam's I have that don;t last any longer, or get me any more pic;s!
My main problem is, that come 3 yrs down the road, the models I have are NO longer made and cannot just replace them
this is where this game gets tricky, as you never know HOW well a CHEAP cam will work or last, and by the time you do, there no longer made to get more if you like em! HAHA
all in all of these cloaks I think I have like 6 of them now, had I known they would work and last like they have been, I'd of bought 10 more!