Ya it was hagshouse that I have been looking at. I need to check out the forum, but I think that is definitly the way to go to get a digital. half the price and a little more pride for building it yourself. I might be getting a cheap stealth cam from wal mart in a couple of days to put out on my elk spot on sunday. My buddy has his camera out and we have already had a roll of cows and little bulls, and some real nice blacktail deer.

Has anyone seen a unit for sale that doesn't include a camera (basically just the motion or thermal sensor and housing?) That would be something I would be interested in rather than building my own. I already own a cheep HP digital camera that I wouldn't care if something happened to it in the woods.

kodiak,
You just can't use any digital camera. Not all digital cameras work as trail cameras due to a few characteristics. I don't believe HP meets the trail camera criterias.

Arkansas that looks great. Thanks for all the help with mine. I do not have it in a case yet because the 1040 box is not here yet. I have the guts and camera setup at home and am driving the wife and kids nuts taking their pictures. I should have it in the woods by the weekend of July 24. Now I am just waiting to hear back from Hill Hopper about getting another board so I can put together another one. I picked up 2 of the p32 cameras on eBay a while back.

Everyone else Arkansas is right about the guys on hagshouse.com. I posted a question about how to hook the board to the camera. One guy responded in about 5 minutes. He had me go to the chat and he talked me thru everything. This was on the 4th of July. He didn't have to do that but he spent his time helping me. What a great place. Just get the parts and they will make sure you get it all hooked up.

I was under the impression that all those trail camera's I saw at Cabela's included a camera of some sort. Man that makes them a lot more expensive than I thought if you have to buy the unit and add a camera.

Those do. I think what he is getting at is for the home brews you can't use just any camera. It sounds like you are looking to use that hp in a home brew setup. I haven't heard of anyone using an hp for a trail camera. From what I have heard the sony p32 is about the best for homebrew out there. That is what I am putting together right now. Hope this makes sense.

Yes the commercial units come with a camera.

Wihunter has it right, not every digital camera will work as a trail camera. The primary ones right now are the Olympus D-370 & 380 and the Sony P32 & P41.

the reason not all camera's can be used in a trail cam is for several reasons. here are just a few.

the picture quality is poor, takes the camera too long to power up and take a picture (i.e. the sony powers up and takes a picture in around 2.5-3 seconds, that is from the time the sensor has been triggered). if the camera takes too long to power up and snap a pict then you would miss a lot of animals walking by. the flashes on them may be poor. a lot of them are too complicated to hack into. the p32 is very easy, I can have one ready for a unit in about 10 minutes. those are the main ones though I could think of off the top of my head.

with all the supplies and instructions provided at hagshouse, I believe anyone could build one with a little patience. The first one will take you around one day to complete, the rest go faster.

you can also get parts and info on how to make game cam at

http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums/...p?showforum=50

they're having a pic contest too

parts and info

http://www.fieldpix.com/

http://www.pixcontroller.com/

The big thing is how long the camera stays on before automatically shutting down. If it needs a refresh pulse from the sensor board pretty often then the batteries won't last long at all.

Flash is also a consideration. The Sony is as good as it gets without a slave flash.