The game vu uses infared technologies to capture deer w/o a flash but pic quality suffers. With the 1.3mp digital stealth I can set it to daytime only pics to avoid night time flash shots. Personally IMO it depends on the deer weather or not they are scared by the flash. If you're woried about it I'd get on that only takes daytime pics or skip on the cam durring the season. To me the only thing that matters this time of year is what's out there durring legal shooting hours.