backyard trail cam recommendations

[Bill Gerth]

Hi folks,

I know some of you use wildlife cameras. We are thinking about getting one for Christmas. Any recommendations for ones that work well?

Thanks!

Cheers,

Bill

[Ray Temple]

Bill, I have a Reconyx P800 which takes still images; a WR6 which takes stills and 1080p30 videos; and a Hyperfire HF2X

which takes stills and lesser videos.  All are covert IR flash models.  If you want pictures to hang on the wall you want a white flash; if you want to image critters with little disturbance to them you want IR.  If I were buying another I would get the WR6 for its marvellous nighttime videos and 8 MP daylight images.  It's a bit slower to trigger than the others at about a second but the imagery is much better.  Reconyx also excels at customer service for all manner of technical and logistical questions.   https://www.reconyx.com      Another useful site is trailcampro.com with reviews and ancillary information.  Better, get as many actual user recommendations as you can before buying.

Like any other worthwhile hobby, there are accessories:

• images are recorded on SD cards if the camera is not wifi enabled. Most of mine are 32 GB, except when I plan to leave the camera for a long time.
• most cameras will need 8 or 12 AA batteries.  High performance cameras want lithium or rechargeable NiMH batteries.  You will save a bunch of money if you buy NiMH batteries and a charger at the outset.
  
• you will need a way to mount the camera on trees or whatever.  A good articulated mount gives you a lot of options.  If you are to use your camera off your property or any place visible to the public you will also want a security enclosure customed to your camera plus a locking cable.  For safe locations I just use aluminum tripods that I find at Goodwill, with no other security paraphernalia.

You need a trail camera.  A motion-activated camera will open a whole new nocturnal fauna to your view and record lots of interesting behaviors in daylight and dark.  We have seen one possum on our place in daylight; no skunks, other possums, coons, coyotes, jack rabbits.  At night it's a jungle out there.  Also secretive birds that I never see in the yard show up on camera in our riparian corridor. I use our cameras to answer questions, like "who lives in the hole?";  "how do birds and wildlife respond to our summer water features?"; "what creature is digging up our crocus bulbs?"; " what are the screech owls giving their chicks?" and so many more. Great fun and educational.

Ray

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[Bill Gerth]

Thanks Jim, Randy & Pam, and Ray,

I really appreciate your recommendations and the benefit of your experience! We'll check those out and see what might best fit our needs and budget.

Hope you enjoyed the surprise snow and that it wasn't too much of an inconvenience.

Cheers,

Bill

On 11/06/2022 4:46 PM Jim Fairchild <j...@alderspring.net> wrote:

Hi Bill,

We’ve had pretty decent success here with Stealth Cam no-glow photo/video cameras.  They keep changing the models with the many improvements, so can’t recommend a particular model, but they’ve held up pretty well.  I made the mistake of buying the last couple from a sketchy source—those knock-offs have been having unstable video recording problems.  We were disappointed with the Primos cameras we tried.

Our son bought a couple Reconyx for their bio-consulting business, and had one stolen from one of their Mojave ground squirrel survey grids.  Even installed it with a lock box.  Expensive loss, so they mostly rely on their Bushnells now.

Probably screening multiple online reviews can help you hone in.

We had 5 elk (one a bull) wander through this summer.  Except for a video and some barely visible tracks, we wouldn’t have known there were any around. 

Happy trail-camering!

Jim

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