Heelp, I need a list of good reliable trail camera's...I will spend between 1-2 hundred bucks! I have looked at Moultrie,Bushnell,Primos,and several others...I want one that shows pics without having to take the camera down...and I am challenged,so I need a simple one...Tanks for any help!
For the money you have budgeted, the best option by far would be the Moultrie M880, or its current stablemate. The M880 can be had for $159.00 from Trailcampro.com. It offers several features that are a must have, most important of which are its trigger times, and reset. Trigger time on the M880 is under one second, reset under three(3)!
Why is that important, well because many of these trail cams triggers will take over one second to actuate, some of these very significantly over one second, which results in a preponderance of empty frame images. In other words, by the time the camera fired, the animal was long gone. You want "sub one second" triggering as a rule! Reset is how fast the camera rearms after firing a set, many cameras take thirty seconds or longer to rearm, some as much as a minute. The Moultrie M880 resets in under three seconds, which is very fast, further it can be easily rigged to fire four images in about 1.5 seconds, then reset itself in under three seconds and repeat ect..ect...
Detection range is also vital, this is measured in how effectively each camera trap reaches out, and how wide the arc of detection is. The Moultrie M880 is crazy good at this, its zone is a claimed 60 feet, but in reality its more like 90, which is just excellent. The M880 is extremely easy to program, many end up not even requiring the manual, however you will need the manual for directions on accessing time-lapse features and such.
The camera's durability is very good, it runs on eight AA's, and a set is quite likely all you will require for an entire season. I have a Moultrie 880 on a site where I image bears, its been active since the animals emerged from den at the end of March, its snapped over 20000 images of black bear, and the original eight lithium AA's I loaded it with are still above 50%!
Not bad for a $159.00....BTW, I do not recommend Bushnell cameras, they have some great features, however they have hardware issues, and take very crappy nighttime images, the Trophy cam's I had(a half dozen)all exhibited significant blurring of any nighttime objects, even stationary ones...One other thing, don't get sucked in by megapixels, they are virtually meaningless in camera traps, consider the absolute best trail cameras made, the $500-600.00 Reconyx traps, only offer 3-5 megapixels....
