Game cameras

[PawPaw]

I'm a fan of game cams, trail cams, call them what you will. Some of them have their drawbacks, but in general they help to see where the game is moving and I've gotten some extremely interesting photos over the past couple of years. While night-time photos are interesting, they don't really tell me a whole lot about the daytime hunting.

Lately, though, I'm looking at two cameras that seem to be more in line with my hunting activities. These two in particular, the Plotwatcher, and the GardenWatch, seem to be the same camera. One is camo, for the hunter, and one is green colored, for the garden. They seem to be the same camera with the only difference being the outside color.

Brinno Garden Watch for about $120.00 US

PlotWatcher Cam for about $185.00 US.

Does anyone have any experience with either of these cameras?

 

[603Country]

I bought a plotwatcher and have had it in the field for maybe 3 weeks. I have to admit that I'm not all that impressed with it so far, but there's a real good chance that I just need to read the manual again. And, I already knew that most of the critter movement was late afternoon, early morning, and night, so seeing a lot of critters during the day wasn't expected. Still, I put the camera in my side yard (we live in the country) facing a corn feeder. I had deer all over that feeder one morning, but not one deer showed up on the camera. Probably my fault in the camera setup, but I haven't taken the time to try to figure out what I did wrong. So, if anyone else out there can comment on how best to use the thing, I'm all ears.

 

[Hog Buster]

Over here in Pointe Coupee parish we’ve been using cheap Moultrie D50’s with great success. I get color pictures of just about everything that passes, day or night. Birds, rabbits,coons, possums, hogs, deer, owls, bobcats, house cats, skunks, coyotes, foxes and so on. The D50 has a bit of a delay before taking the picture so something that is moving past quickly doesn’t get its picture taken. You have to have feed or bait to slow them down for a minute so they’ll be in frame when the camera goes off.

The Moultrie D50 costs around $80.00 and the batteries last for hundreds of pictures, just about the entire deer season for me. If you would like me to call you, PM me with a phone number and I’ll give you ring........

 

[603Country]

All the game cameras I have now are Moultrie, and the latest is the D50, and I'm happy with it. Batteries last a long time. Only problem, and it isn't a big problem is that picture quality is down a bit from the more expensive Moultries I have. And, another minor problem I have with Moultrie cameras is that the trigger time seems slow. I have a lot of pictures of the back ends of various critters. I had a Bushnell that had a fast trigger time, but you couldn't adjust time between pictures. I kept using it till I put it on a tree about 1 foot below what the maximum water level turned out to be in the creek during a downpour. If anyone wants to suggest their favorite game cameras and why, I'd like to hear it.

 

[Hog Buster]

603Country

I agree on all you posted, but you’ll never get studio quality pics out of a game camera. Not for $80. I presume that you have the D50 set on high quality? I Use mine to see what’s been dining on my chickens and see what time the deer or hogs are moving. To me it’s great for that. I’m not looking for 8 x10s. I’ve got one of the Bushnell infrared ones that’s terrible. Daytime pictures are OK, but the infrared ones are awful and like yours there was no controlling the time between pictures. It took a picture every minute and ate batteries. The guys around here went thru many brands and spent a bunch of money to get the same results I get with the D50.

 

[nodlenor]

I have a Moultre Game spy 200, a Stealth STC-AD3, & a Stealth STC-1540IR. The Moultre is the easiest to set up and use. The Srealth STC-AD3 takes the best pictures and has the farthest flash range (90ft.). The Stealth STC-1540IR is ok for daytime but I dont like the nighttime pictures at all. If I was going to purchase another one it would probably be a Moultre because it is much simpler to set up and use.

 

[603Country]

Hog Buster,

Yep, picture quality, particularly at night isn't very good, but all I care about is finding out what is showing up and when. The cheap Moultrie works fine and the batteries last really well (that's one thing I like about Moultrie). The more expensive ones work well and take good pictures (6 megapixels). I'd buy another Moultrie. I just wish it had a faster trigger time. I get too many shots of the back half of deer. The one Stealth camera I had just wouldn't work, and their customer service was truly awful. The hunting store took it back, and I replaced it with a Moultrie. And, when one of my Moultries quit working, their customer service was terrific. They took the dead one and sent me a brand new one. I also had a Leaf River camera, and it worked fine for a number of years. Finally died, and I replaced it with the cheaper Moultrie.