Best Trail Camera

[BCHunterFSJ]

I finally saved up enough pennies and bought the most expensive Browning camera.
The very first time I put it up it got eaten by a bear! It is now held together by Gorilla Glue...

[caddisguy]

I stick with Bushnell, Browning and Stealth Cam for the most part these days.

For a couple years (last couple years) I experimented with the cheap Chinese cams off Amazon. They seemed like a great deal. $60-80 for cams with insane specs.

What I found was most of the cams have the same internals. Essentially the same cameras, they just re-brand them once the negative reviews start to topple the fake ones and the "just bought it haven't ran it in the weather for more than a week" 5 star ratings.

I've tried 7 of them and none are without serious problems. Here's the common issues these cameras commonly face:

- 4 of them had water ingress

- 3 experienced SD card connection problems (tried many cards and adapters) sometimes you would need to re-insert it a few times before it will detect the card. When it does detect the card, it will film for a day or two and lose contact with the card again.

- Software crashing. Often come back to the cams and they are just unresponsive, and you need to "turn it off and on again"

- Cards filled up with false positives. This occurred on two cameras. They would act normal for a few days and then film almost continually. No wind, rain or bugs that would cause the camera to trigger. Even with sensitivity set to low and long delay between captures set, same deal.

- Time floating on 2 of the cameras. Some will have the correct date, then all of a sudden next video is 1960, next video is 2025, etc.

So essentially I spend about $600-700 on the China stuff. Obviously didn't expect them all to be problem free or anything, but did not expect all of them to have one or more deal breaker issues that would result in lost / missed footage.

We spend a huge amount of effort hiking into places, rigging these cams, insane amount on batteries and such. Checking cam footage, I feel like a little kid on Christmas with the surprises those cards might hold, but to hike for hours to check those cards I've been dreaming about for weeks, just to get burned again and again because I was tempted by a "good deal".

Lesson learned. I'll stick with companies / brands that don't come and go and change their name every few months (for "reasons")

The big names aren't always trouble free. I find the Stealth cams never have the video specs they claim, and the LED's often wear down after a couple years. Still feel like I get my $$$ worth.

The Bushnell and Browning were gifts from my work and family and in the $300 range. Nervous to stick that kinda dough on a tree and walk away (which is something that makes the China-direct cams seem tempting) ... those bad boys have been running strong about 5 years now without a hiccup. And so far the only cam I ever had go missing was an old Simmons Whitetail... claw marks all over the tree where it was. Another was damaged by a bear.

I think a mix of a few Stealthcam and a couple Bushnell / Browning cams is they way to go if you want to run say 5-7 cams.

[HighCountryBC]

I posted about this awhile ago. The consensus I received was “buy cheap and buy lots”

I run upwards of 15 cameras year round as do several of my partners. Ourea and his gang run even more than that. We would all agree that is very poor advice. You really have no idea just how much you'll miss compared to a quality camera.

Personally, I'd stick with the Browning (pro models) or Bushnells. Amazing trigger speed and quality playback. I run a couple Reconyx Hyperfire as well and they are the cream of the crop but at that price they just aren't economical.

[REMINGTON JIM]

SPYPOINT® FORCE DARK 12mp

best trigger speed
very clear videos or photos
discontinued, too bad

yea they must have being good Now discontinued Lol. RJ

[pushbush]

Thanks for the comments guys, anyone see any good deals anywhere?

[fozzy]

Also interested is getting some more trail cams. Good thread.


I bought a Uway cam from wholesale sports before they closed along with the steel box to protect it. A bear gave it a munch but that didn't stop it from working. One year i had it out watching a water hole that had water through the hot summer. It also rained a ton on the island and it filled about 1/3 full with water which ruined it. I sent it back and they sent me a new one. It seems they are no longer around.
I did get some nice pictures this year of some whitetails with it.

[Sitkaspruce]

For me, Browning for video and the cheaper ones for pictures.

I have a few Stealthcams, G45 models, and they are OK, but not great in either department. One complaint is the I can only get 250 10 second videos on a 32 gig card, yet I can get 550 on the same card and settings on the Brownings. Plus Brownings can use up to a 512 g card, which means I can get over 8800 videos on a single card, not that I need that much. I run 64g cards on all Brownings.

I have an Amazon cam that actually does well; the only complaint is the micro SD card, its tough install it at the best of times and sometimes I get video that plays for 7 seconds, then freezes for the last 3.

Cheapies that work for me are; Tasco 8mp (one crapped out the but the other keeps taking great photos), Simmons Prohunter and the new Primos Autopilot.

I am in the process of building external power systems for all my Brownings and using Lithium 12v batteries. Should give me all season power, although I will only run them after the bears go to bed. Tough finding AA lithiums in Canada right now and don't cost $2 or more a battery.

Cheers

SS

[CReever]

I run 10 Bushnell, 4 Stealthcam, and 4 Spypoint cameras. The Bushnell cameras are almost 10 years old now and have yet to fail me. The Stealthcam and Spypoint cameras are good but have their downsides.

Trailcam tips: (side notes to the original post question).

- Bear/Security boxes act as insurance with more expensive cameras in bear areas. Grizzly bears have mauled the housing many times on my cameras so that the strap and python lock are rendered useless. Now I have to use bear boxes regardless.

- Lithium AA batteries are a must! My Spypoint cameras can get 12-18 months battery life on one set. The Bushnell's get 12 months depending on usage. Stealthcam gets 8 plus months.

- If you like getting pictures versus videos from trail camera scouting, adjust the settings on the camera so that the camera isn't taking pictures of the highest megapixel resolution. For example, if the camera can take 14mp photos but has a 8mp setting choose the 8mp setting to maximize space on the memory card. This also helps with battery life on mineral licks and bait piles where your camera may be triggering 10,000 - 20,000 photos.

- Position your cameras North or South to reduce glare and poor quality photos. Depending on the situation facing the camera slightly downward and higher up on the tree can be beneficial with a bait or mineral lick setup.

[2chodi]

A couple of points:

My Browning camera would not take photos or videos at night with Alkaline AA Batteries - switched to Lithium and all is good.

The sensors on these trail cams can't do , 8, 12, 20 etc megapixel images natively, so if you are using the higher resolution settings, you are relying of software magic — some cameras do this better than others.

I see that the Muddy 2 packs at a pretty good price (watch for sales) get reasonable reviews, but I have no personal experience.

[2chodi]

I finally saved up enough pennies and bought the most expensive Browning camera.
The very first time I put it up it got eaten by a bear! It is now held together by Gorilla Glue...

Yo might try contacting Browning to see if they can provide a new case. I had a bear take after a Bushnell camera years ago and they sent me a case for free from a camera that had been returned to them because it was defective.