wy_hunter

Buying a trail cam

I live in starvally WY were I am an outfitter and I would like to buy two or three digital trail cams to put out at wallows and in the Hi country for mule deer. There are so many choose so I would like real world advice.

Thanks Ralph
www.saltriverrangeoutfitters.com

wi_buckstomper

i have a stealth cam which i love. but i would have to say digital is the only way to go.

RackLuster

Personally, for the wallows, I would go w/ a wildview 4.0 + steatlh 12 volt battery kit.$110 for camera and $37 for battery kit. Might want to pick up a second batteryat batteries plus. The trigger time is the major complaint about these cameras which shouldn't matter for you. I have a wildview 2.0 and have thousands of pictures from it. It's super easy to setup and configure - mostly just switches.

For the high country it's going to be tougher to find a solid camera. I would guess that you are going to need better trigger time then a wildview. The new moultries are too unproven and people are reporting a lot of issues with them (including me). A lot of people on here are probably going to say cuddeback expert since they apparently cleaned things up w/ there '07 models. You may actually want to get one of the high end cams or a home brew. Can't help you much on that one.

Be sure to check out www.chasingame.com they do reviews and also have forums.

patchholder

I would recomend for the moneymoultrie cameras like the 4.0 for $100 trigger time is good and good quality for the money, battery life is pretty long as well.

Buck Magnet

Well, seeing as how your an outfitter, I would suggest putting a bigger investment into the game cameras you purchase and go with units that are not only going to work properly, but they will give you better quality pictures for your customers and that are better for patterning deer.

I have used the Moultrie Digitals and Stealth Cam digitals and I can honestly say that for the money they aren't bad, but they are nowhere near the same leauge as other cameras on the market. Slower trigger speed, shorter battery life, and lower quality pictures are just a few issues with the cheaper units.

From my personal experience, I would say the best digital camera that I have ever used is the 3.0 megapixel Cuddeback C3000. This unit has performed flawlessly and has given me the best battery life, best trigger speed, and some of the best quality photo's that I have got. I would also suggest the CamTraker Digital Ranger. I have heard nothing but great things about the Digital Ranger as well.

Granted, these units cost a little more $350-$450, but the quality and performance of these units is worth the extra money!

RackLuster

CamTraker Digital Ranger - that's the camera I was trying to think of when I suggested a high end cam. I've heard nothing but good things about them too. the pictures are ABSOLUTELY amazing from that cam.

r33h

Don't the new Moultrie cams take care of these problems?

There are a lot of reviews over at www.chasingame.com and you can get a lot of info. One thing that I have trouble with is spending a lot of money on a camera and wait for it to get stolen. I haven't had one stolen yet, but everytime I go out in the woods to retrieve it, I often wonder if today is the day.

The new moultrie's are suppose to be really, really nice and have very quick trigger speeds, a locating beacon feature, up to 6.0 MP pics, and several other nice additions. Are there several different models with various features, but I would give them an honest look. I have a Moultrie GameSpy 200 and I think the pics aren't that bad (for a 3.0 MP).

Just my two cents...

RackLuster

personally, i don't think themoultries are all they're cracked up to be. I posted my issues w/ them on chasingame. essentially:

1) sensor didn't pick up my motion after walking by the cam several times
2) hard to tell when it's on or off
3) video goes from light to dark repeatedly
4) when in video mode the pic's during the day are only 320x240
5) customer service thinks a 320x240 picture just needs to be zoomed in on to make it 4 megapixel?????????
6) customer service ignores me after I tell them they don't know anything (go figure?)
7) after 2 minutes the camera goes into sleep mode which blows their 1 second trigger time claim out of the water!
8) file attributes (created date, last updated date etc.) all say 1/1/2000 so you can't tell when a pic was taken in windows. Video is even harder - you have to look at a small corresponding image to tell when video was taken (that is really really stupid!)

Paddles

Ihave purchased a moultrie 2.1 and it has worked fine.its always fun to see what you have on there. good luck!