caddisguy
12-10-2014, 10:59 AM
I know not everyone is a fan of trailcams or any sort of gadget in the woods. I understand it to a degree, but I think cams are fun and they have some potential--though not huge potential--to help learn a little bit more about whats in our areas. I don't think it's "cheating" and for the most part, I just think they are really neat and this post is for others like minded guys looking for an in-field viewer. This isn't just for trailcams either... dashcams, headcams, whatever floats your boat.
This was my situation. I started with one trailcam that someone bought me last Christmas. I saw a buck on the first night, then more deer and a cougar over the first week. I was hooked. I picked up some more cams to cover more area on my mountain of focus. We had 2 cams burried deep, a couple hours of hiking through timber. Another was less of a hike, but a tough climb. If I was going to go in to check the trailcam, I wanted to see the footage on the spot to see if I wanted to make any adjustments, move the camera or hang another camera near-by. Sometimes we would pack in a laptop which was ultra crappy. Other times we'd just swap cards and watch them at back at camp, then regret placement or not hanging another camera while we were in... also crappy.
I see these hand-held card readers for $100-$200. Most of them only work on specific cameras, video formats, etc. Sounds like a sour deal to me.
I wanted something light weight and cheap that would be able to offload and view any sort of pictures/videos, whether it was from my dashcam, headcam, hand-held, or most importantly my various models of trailcams.
Here is my solution. Some of these Android tablets are dirt cheap now. I bought a "Digital 2" tablet new for $49. It's tiny/thin (maybe 7inches?) and light. Very little room/weight in the pack. It has a micro-sd card reader and a mini-usb port. Most of my cards are 16-32GB micro-sd with full-size SD adapters (I just picked up another 4 16GB Class 10 micro-sd's with adapters for $9.99 each) so I can use them in any device (sd or micro-sd). I also found a dual sd/micro-sd card reader that works through usb or mini-usb for $10 at NCIX (it's like a swiss army knife for cards!) just incase I want to work with my old full-size sd-only cards... though I have enough of the micro-sd's with sd adapters to never need to (unless I'm taking/keeping a heck of a lot of video and adding a lot more trailcams)
So if you have a need for in-field viewing, for the price you can buy one of these hand-held trailcam viewers that aren't very functional, you can buy a tablet that will play/view everything and still have money left over to buy a case and several sd cards if you want. You can copy the pics/videos onto the tablet itself or another card/device via the expansion card or micro-usb. My total for the tablet, case, 4 cards and optional-but-perhaps-handy reader/adapter after tax was $130. That's with a lot of extra goodies though... $49 for the tablet itself would have done the main job I needed.
Also if you have a phone that runs Android and lets you hot-swap cards, it might do a lot or all of what you need as well. In summary, tablet over hand-held trailcam viewer for sure. These tablets will work with any pic/video and let you juggle around or store data anyway you want with any device you want.
This was my situation. I started with one trailcam that someone bought me last Christmas. I saw a buck on the first night, then more deer and a cougar over the first week. I was hooked. I picked up some more cams to cover more area on my mountain of focus. We had 2 cams burried deep, a couple hours of hiking through timber. Another was less of a hike, but a tough climb. If I was going to go in to check the trailcam, I wanted to see the footage on the spot to see if I wanted to make any adjustments, move the camera or hang another camera near-by. Sometimes we would pack in a laptop which was ultra crappy. Other times we'd just swap cards and watch them at back at camp, then regret placement or not hanging another camera while we were in... also crappy.
I see these hand-held card readers for $100-$200. Most of them only work on specific cameras, video formats, etc. Sounds like a sour deal to me.
I wanted something light weight and cheap that would be able to offload and view any sort of pictures/videos, whether it was from my dashcam, headcam, hand-held, or most importantly my various models of trailcams.
Here is my solution. Some of these Android tablets are dirt cheap now. I bought a "Digital 2" tablet new for $49. It's tiny/thin (maybe 7inches?) and light. Very little room/weight in the pack. It has a micro-sd card reader and a mini-usb port. Most of my cards are 16-32GB micro-sd with full-size SD adapters (I just picked up another 4 16GB Class 10 micro-sd's with adapters for $9.99 each) so I can use them in any device (sd or micro-sd). I also found a dual sd/micro-sd card reader that works through usb or mini-usb for $10 at NCIX (it's like a swiss army knife for cards!) just incase I want to work with my old full-size sd-only cards... though I have enough of the micro-sd's with sd adapters to never need to (unless I'm taking/keeping a heck of a lot of video and adding a lot more trailcams)
So if you have a need for in-field viewing, for the price you can buy one of these hand-held trailcam viewers that aren't very functional, you can buy a tablet that will play/view everything and still have money left over to buy a case and several sd cards if you want. You can copy the pics/videos onto the tablet itself or another card/device via the expansion card or micro-usb. My total for the tablet, case, 4 cards and optional-but-perhaps-handy reader/adapter after tax was $130. That's with a lot of extra goodies though... $49 for the tablet itself would have done the main job I needed.
Also if you have a phone that runs Android and lets you hot-swap cards, it might do a lot or all of what you need as well. In summary, tablet over hand-held trailcam viewer for sure. These tablets will work with any pic/video and let you juggle around or store data anyway you want with any device you want.