Cam setup longer term

[ishootlittlebucks]

I usually put cams on public land where no bait is allowed and usually Check them weekly. I set them to take lots of pics.

I bought a place 6 hours away and am carrying cams up this weekend. Plan on throwing half a bag of corn and half a bag of salt in front of each one. I figure the corn will be gone quick, but if they keep coming to the salt, I could get lots of pics. I won't get up there to check them for 2-3 months. How long should I set the delay so I don't fill them up in a few weeks and also don't miss a lot of deer?

 

[shdw633]

Depends on how big your SD card is. If you have a 32 gb card you can set them up for every thirty seconds and be just fine. Your pics will fall off dramatically after the corn is gone...even with the salt there. if you have a 2 gb card you better set it for a pic a minute or more.

 

[ishootlittlebucks]

I have 8 gig cards. I set them for 1 min, with a 3 shot burst. I can change them if I should though.

 

[furtaker]

I'd set them for a one minute delay and forget the burst. Burst mode is fine for trails and scrapes but it's way too many pictures over bait that does nothing but eat up your memory.

 

[deast1988]

My experience is corn helps find the minerals. But it could take a few weeks to get a pattern to the minerals. For a few months I'd do a 1 picture every 3mins. With a 16gb card. And premium battery's. I've found Duracell tend to last longer then the rest.

 

[Mr Bya Lungshot]

How often will you go six hours away?

 

[ishootlittlebucks]

Probably right about 1 pic at a time. Even if I don't get a good pic on the first pass, probably be another one within the months they will be out.

I do use Duracells. Sam's has them for $20 for 48. I have found them to last, and more importantly, not leak and ruin my cams.

I won't get up there that often. Maybe 2 or 3 times in the off season, and 2 or 3 times a year to hunt. I bought it as a place to build a house on when I retire If I can kill a few deer on it, thats just gravy.

 

[shdw633]

Probably right about 1 pic at a time. Even if I don't get a good pic on the first pass, probably be another one within the months they will be out.

I do use Duracells. Sam's has them for $20 for 48. I have found them to last, and more importantly, not leak and ruin my cams.

I won't get up there that often. Maybe 2 or 3 times in the off season, and 2 or 3 times a year to hunt. I bought it as a place to build a house on when I retire If I can kill a few deer on it, thats just gravy.

Consider getting you a cellular camera, you will be able to make changes to your camera via your phone app or computer, you will get pictures sent right too you. It will help fight the urge to run to camp to check your pictures, saving you money. You can get a good cellular camera for as low as $170 or as high as $500. I have 3 spypoints out that I got for $170 each and they send me a100 pics free each month or I can pay $15 a month and get unlimited pics sent to me (They got several plans available). Good set of lithiums and the camera goes 2 months on a single set. I am going to attach my Moultrie solar panel to the camera when I go up next month to see if I can't get six months out of a set of batteries using it. I also have a moultrie field modem attached to a moultrie 888i and I spend $10 a month on that and it sends me 750 pics per month and because it's hooked up to a solar panel I have had a set of batteries in both the camera and modem that have lasted me 3 months so far and are still at over 70% strength. These cameras save me money in going back and forth just to check trail cameras. Since it costs me about $100 to go up to camp, it doesn't take too many saved trips to offset the price of the cameras and panels.

 

[EAGLE EYE 444]

After reading the above information and seeing some responses, the truth is that with all of the above information shown, there is NO way to know how many photos will be taken for a certain period of (say 30 days with photos being taken at ONE per minute or THREE per minute etc UNLESS you know the correct Megapixel of your camera and then also know what Resolution your camera is actually set for because if you set up the RESOLUTION on HIGH, MEDIUM, OR LOW setting, that means a huge difference on how many photos your camera can take during a certain period of time.

Some of you must not realize is that even though you have a 10 MP camera, the LOW Resolution setting is actually performing as ONLY a 6 MP, the Medium setting is actually performing as an 8 MP camera, and the High setting is actually performing as the true 10 MP camera that this camera is capable to achieve if all conditions are right and it performs well at the HIGH setting. Lots of cameras perform much better in photo quality when they are set at the medium settings. In fact, most of my cameras perform better at the Medium settings. Over the past 7 years plus, it took a lot of trial and error that has included lots and lots of various WGI model cameras. I have very few of them set on the high Resolution setting. In fact, the 6 MP performance level has worked far better than any other setting for me.

When you are buying a new camera, look at the details listed on the back of the camera box about settings and see the details of the actual Megapixel performance of each RESOLUTION setting and I think that you will surprised somewhat.


An example of the results of this process is as follows:

This information below is based on the JPEG file format which is the most common file format for consumer cameras. All of the data that I have used as a reference is a Compressed JPEG images per memory card. This data is determined by a standard Sandisk SDHC Memory card.

This is the link below to this information and I would suggest that all of you that use trail cameras set it up in your Favorites/Bookmarked File for future reference as I have used this information since I first started using trail cameras.

https://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/...ictures-that-can-be-stored-on-a-memory-device


If you use a 10 MP camera set on the HIGH resolution setting, meaning that it really is performing at the true 10 MP level, using an 8 GM memory card and set it up to take ONE photo every 3 minutes, you will be surprised to know that your camera can ONLY take 20 photos per hour which means 480 photos per 24 hr day which REALLY means that your 8 GB memory card will be FULL within approximately 114.4 hours which equates to only 4.766 complete days. This information is based on getting 2288 of the 10 MP photos total for an 8 GB memory card.

Likewise on the MEDIUM setting which equates to 8 MP photos, you could get a total of approximately 2861 total photos and on the LOW resolution setting of 6 MP photos, you could get a total of approximately 3814 total photos on that 8 GB memory card.

In the situation of the original poster of this thread, I'm thinking that maybe SHDW 633 might have the very best solution under your conditions.

 

[ishootlittlebucks]

I have considered a cell cam. I can't do it right now, but had planned to try next year. I'm glad to hear the good reviews on the Spypoint cams, the reviews I've seen on the internet have gone both ways. I see that Primos is coming out with one with an MSRP of around $200. I like the Primos cams I have and hand planned to look into one after the bugs had been worked out. I will consider spypoint also. I don't think I'll ever be able to replace all the regular cams I have with them, running about 8 cheap cams now. it would be nice to have one or 2 for up there and use the regular cams here.

that's a good idea about changing the resolution on the ones with that capability. it will fit more pics that way. I seem to remember getting 3000 or so pics on the 8 gig cards, though that was usually when I wasn't careful about clearing the grass out of the way.

I'm going to take 5 cams with me and it's only 80 acres, so I should be able to get pics of most of the deer in the area. I don't use them at home in the summer anyway. They might as well be working for me somewhere.

 

[furtaker]

I can tell little or no difference in picture quality of my cameras between the resolution settings so I generally prefer a medium setting to save memory card space. Megapixel numbers are usually just a sales pitch from camera companies. They add megapixels to the images without actually improving the picture. Some 6 megapixel cameras will take a much clearer picture than some 10 megapixel cameras. The best way to judge photo quality is to see the actual photos instead of relying on a number the company put on a box.

 

[BassHunter25]

Even if you have a 10 mp cam most don’t capture pics that high mp at night. And majority of deer pics are usually at night. That’s why changing resolutions isn’t that noticeable. The diff in 6 or 10 mp in daylight is only if you wanna frame a pic one day. 6 mp is good quality for a deer pic.

 

[EAGLE EYE 444]

I can tell little or no difference in picture quality of my cameras between the resolution settings so I generally prefer a medium setting to save memory card space. Megapixel numbers are usually just a sales pitch from camera companies. They add megapixels to the images without actually improving the picture. Some 6 megapixel cameras will take a much clearer picture than some 10 megapixel cameras. The best way to judge photo quality is to see the actual photos instead of relying on a number the company put on a box.

furtaker, I agree with you 100 % as you are very correct on the fact that 6 MP cameras will take a much better photo than lots of 10 Megapixel cameras. I have had an assortment of WGI cameras in service 24/7/365 over the past 7 plus years now and these include a 5 MP, a bunch of 6 MP, two 7 MP, several 8 MP, about twenty 10 MP, and also ONE NANO LIGHTSOUT 22 MP (That is the absolute worse camera that I have). I have tried every setting possible and it still does not take photos as good as any of my other cameras. I removed it from service about a month ago after trying for close to 2 years to get it to perform better.

When I first put it in service, I also already had a Blade X6 on the tree, so I put the 22 MP camera about a foot above it. They are angled in the exact same location. The Blade X6 beat it in every respect. (THIS 22 MP CAMERA IS SITTING ON THE SHELF FOR NOW). By the way some of these Blade X 6 cameras are actually set at the Medium resolution setting (4 MP) and they still do a really good job. Overall, the Blade X6 cameras have performed much better for the money value than any other model camera that I own.

I do have several Razor X 10 LIGHTSOUT cameras that have performed excellent as well on both the Medium resolution settings (8 MP) and also on the High setting for 10 MP. I have posted lots of photos of deer here on GON that appear to be talking to these cameras , some are super close-up because these cameras must intrigue the deer somewhat. Some of these photos are so close up that you can see every hair, eyelash, and even really small ticks etc on the deer. I make sure to put a black piece of electrical tape over the red-light sensor function on EVERY one of my cameras so that the deer do NOT see that red light blinking and neither does any trespassers even at night.

I even have a photo back from a couple of years ago of one deer actually licking the lens area of the camera. I will say that the RAZOR X10 CAMERAS offer the very best battery life even with very high photo counts for a period of 12-14 months. I use ONLY Duracell Quantums on all of my AA battery cameras and have recently begun to use the Quantum C-cell batteries on two of my 6 MP cameras that were manufactured back in 2012.

 

[Long Cut]

I setup cameras for anywhere from 2 months to 12 months. Minerals, funnels, bedding areas, scrapes you name it.

I average 3-4K pictures in 2-3 months off mineral sites, couple hundred to 1k off scrapes from sept to mid November and bedding areas are make or break. You either get good pics or bust em all out...

I only use lithium batteries with 8-32gb cards, settings vary on what I’m targeting

I’m running 12 cameras now on 7 different properties currently I will say this, big bucks DO NOT return for at least 3-7 days after I been there. I’d check them less frequently