A very nice trail camera for the money....

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Feanor

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These are from a new Bushnell trail camera I'm using for tracking gray wolves up in the northern blue hills of northwest Wisconsin. The model is the 2012 edition of the "Trophy Cam HD," and I can tell you that in no uncertain terms, it is far and away the best camera of its kind I've yet field tested. It even out performs my Reconyxx which costs $300.00 more.

It offers adjustable pixel(3/5/8), full or wide screen option, capture rate of one to three shots per shutter, low, medium, high LED/multi-flash option, selectable video from 320 X 240, 640 X 480, or 1280 X 720 for true HD video, video with audio programmable from one to sixty seconds in length, with a reset rate of just ten seconds, and best of all a 0.6 second trigger time, along with a reset rate of just 2.9 seconds! Believe me, if it trips the sensor this camera is going to get the shots.

It also offers some extremely useful features, such as a "programable field scan" option which allows the user to program the camera to auto scan its field of view at preset intervals without interfering with the cameras normal operation. This is a valuable option for hunters who may have animals brousing just outside of the cameras 70 foot sensor range! It also offers time lapse options that are quite interesting, and a bunch of other features that I know I'm forgetting. The Bushnell Trophy HD runs on eight AA batterys, but it will also run on as few as four. Its ridiculously simple to program, all in all a killer trail set for just over $200.00!

I'll post other images as I can, especially once the blue hills gray wolf packs have their pups and start moving them from rendevous point to rendevous point over the summer.
 
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All of that for such little money almost sounds to good to be true, thank-you for sharing Ann for such a good in depth report.

Good luck
God speed

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk 2
 
I don't know if I'm lazy (well, who ain't) but wouldn't it be cool to have a game cam that one could view/download remotely via the "net"? There's probably workarounds/ready-mades but probably way expensive?
Some places, one has to go hours to retrieve what may have been "captured".
 
I have a couple of older, cheaper game cameras that work somewhere between hardly at all and somewhat acceptably. I finally caved in late last year and bought a Bushnell Trophy Cam through Amazon for a little over $150. Even though it cost more than my other two cameras combined, it now seems worth it to have a reliable camera. The only negative things about it in my opinion are that mine doesn't imprint the temperature nor the moon phase on the photos, and the Field Scan allows only one time range. The newer 'HD MAX' model allows two time ranges for the field scan. On mine, if you want to save battery and run it only around dawn and dusk you're out of luck. With only a single setting, I have to run the camera all day to get both morning and evening. If that's important to you, be sure you get the newer 'HD MAX' version. If it's not important, you can save a few bucks by getting the one like mine, which is the' Trophy Cam HD' model, with no 'MAX' in the description.

Bushnell says it will operate up to one year, but I think to get that performance there's a limit on the number of photos per day, you have to use premium (lithium?) batteries, and the temperature has to stay in the 30's the whole time. Not likely to happen! Still, using NiMH rechargeable batteries it seems to go for a couple of months.

I'm happy with mine, and if I buy another camera the first one I'll consider will be another Bushnell.
 
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Certain Deaf, there are cameras that do that. Some run off of Wi-Fi and others off of cell phones.


I am most likely getting the cell phone one because even though it costs $10 per additional line it makes it self up in gas costs driving there, time spent and keeping the area undisturbed.
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Another shot from the new camera....

Unfortunately this shot would have been much nicer if the bear hadn't been moving along the trail so briskly, this resulted in the video camera in the background still flashing, which distorted the shutter on the Bushnell. The video was great, but cannot be posted here.
 
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I have 3 of those and routinely take pictures of deer over 80 yards away. The bad part of that is it also take pictures of bugs and snow flakes with the sensor set on high.
 
That looks really good. The deer pix are sharp.

If I set one up to catch whoever keeps vandalizing my truck, will they see it (any little red LED's, etc) or hear the shutter?

I've also thought about electrifying the truck with a low impedance fence charger, but that's kind of tricky to do. Also I don't really want to do that to any dogs that pee on the wheels. (not with a high-powered charger anyway)
 
zxcvbob said:
That looks really good. The deer pix are sharp.

If I set one up to catch whoever keeps vandalizing my truck, will they see it (any little red LED's, etc) or hear the shutter?

I've also thought about electrifying the truck with a low impedance fence charger, but that's kind of tricky to do. Also I don't really want to do that to any dogs that pee on the wheels. (not with a high-powered charger anyway)
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They won't hear it, however it is not "blackflash." They will see the little LED's emitting, you can upgrade to the max which offers blackflash, and is therefore invisible. I think you'd best steer clear of electrifying your car. :)
 
You can actually get these for a bit less for those who are interested.
http://www.eders.com/product.php?productid=174317 - <$178 after shipping

I have had two of the little Bushnells including the model that precedes this one and they have been okay cameras. I can't tell from the pic of the bear just how good the illumination is at night. With the additional light, short distance, it looks really good and of course the bear being black stands out really well, so I can't see if that is because the night imagery is so good or just the circumstances of the image.

The flash or illumination hot spot seen in the videos can be an issue. You can reduce the effect by mounting the camera higher and it should do a better job with your field of view. You may have to put something like a twig between the camera and tree (assuming it is on a tree) to get the necessary slight downward tilt, but I think it will improve your images and video.

Bushnell says the trigger time is about a second. That seems awfully optimistic. Based on the bear and wolf vids, it looks like it is wll over 2 seconds and closer to 3 or more which is about what I have seen previously with mine. That is why you are getting animals already well into the middle of the image before the video starts and the animals shown are not moving fast. The video doesn't trigger for the animals walking toward the camera until they are well into the image and in some of your examples, have come to a complete stop.

Unfortunately this shot would have been much nicer if the bear hadn't been moving along the trail so briskly, this resulted in the video camera in the background still flashing, which distorted the shutter on the Bushnell. The video was great, but cannot be posted here.
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The bear probably isn't moving very briskly given the slight blur of the image. The other camera isn't that distant and with a slow trigger and 30 second run time, the bear could easy cover the distance as a meandering gait.
 
The video was not the product of the Bushnell camera, it was gathered by a cheap "Wildgame innovations Red 6" trail camera with a trigger time right at four seconds, thats why its gathering video as opposed to still shots!

The Bushnell on the other hand has a 0.6 second trigger time, it took seven images of that bear, I only published the one.
 
An update to the original op, I have contacted "TrailcamPro" and am in the process of returning these Bushnell Trophy HD cameras(2012 version)due to significant, and widespread issues, and failures.

It began with strange firmware issues, such as washed out images, unusually distorted night time imaging, blurring ect...It bled over into the daytime operation of the cameras(3)and after multiple attempts at getting them to perform as advertised they are being dumped as highly overrated, and highly under-performing!

I have a very interesting video capture of a gray wolf, its standing no more than ten feet in front of one of these Bushnell cameras at 10:15 AM, it stood there for a good 10-15 seconds, then turned away and leaped down the ridgeline to avoid the camera, The Bushnell did not fire!!!

Many other examples exist, bears being totally distorted(blurred image in post 8 is standard fare), and or washed out, almost all night time imaging suffering from blurring, ect...All three cameras exibted the exact same eccentricities virtually eliminating operator errors as root cause for they're strange behavior. Bushnell's are of course manufactured in China.

So the Bushnell Trophy cam HD(2012 versiion)gets three big thumbs down from myself, and the boys, you fella's are warned to be very very wary of the hype associated with these machines, they very definitely do not perform to expectation!
 
It sounds like the quality bottomed out, at least on the ones you got. I have older versions of those and they are very good.
 
newbuckeye said:
It sounds like the quality bottomed out, at least on the ones you got. I have older versions of those and they are very good.
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We have three of them, the problems are the exact same as on the older, 2011 & 2010 versions, which is to say they take kick ass day time imagery, but after dark, the performance drops down to well below average. I had a spectacular opportunity with a gray wolf, it approached one of these cameras in broad daylight, to within just a few feet of the machine, scenting it, he stopped and contemplated it for ten seconds, then he loped off down the ridgeline and away from the camera trap.

The Bushnell never fired, an inexcusable failure. We have had all three cameras exibit significant blurring of moving subjects at both dark, and in daylight. Its slide switch, which is quite peculiar, even eccentric in operation must be carefully manipulated. You must follow the instructions for powering them up to a "T" or expect unusual firmware issues as a consequence. This results in the cameras frequently being in need of a hard reset, which will default them back to the factory settings.

All in all, a very good camera for the usual "static bait pile" image gathering, however they are woefully inadequate for capturing predators, especially at, or after dark.
 
Feanor said:
All in all, a very good camera for the usual "static bait pile" image gathering, however they are woefully inadequate for capturing predators, especially at, or after dark.
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That's pretty much how I use mine, and indeed it works well for me. So much so that I just bought another. Cabela's in central Texas has a "Saturday-Only" sale today so I cruised down and picked one up. It's not the HD MAX version, but it is a slightly updated model from my other one. This one imprints the moon phase on the image, but it still only has a single Field Scan setting.

Now that I have a second one, I can double up on trying to figure out where the hogs hang out at night.
 
I think as far as deer imaging goes, these cameras are the cats meow, just as long as the animals are no closer than a few meters or so, and there is very limited movement.

If however the subjects are closer then three meters, moving, at, or after dark, well then performance degrades quickly.
 
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