What's your favorite trail camera?

Originally Posted By: LeviSSOriginally Posted By: thevolkpThe best trail camera is one that you make yourself. I haven't purchased a commercial camera in over 3 years. Built about 40 of them. I have yet to see a commercial camera match the performance of a homebrew.

Could you elaborate a little? Links, etc...?

Don't go to any of these if you don't want to become addicted.... (some require registration)

http://www.hagshouse.com/forums/index.php?act=index

http://realdealhuntingchat.invisionzone.com/

http://www.chasingame.com/forum/index.php

Here's one I made. It uses a 12.1 megapixal camera and a slave flash. This is a white flash unit.

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Here's an example of IR video with sound from another unit I made. It's a little foggy but you get the point.





 
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Much better quality photos, both white flash & IR. Better quality unit because you built it, you can fix it if a problem arises. But in general they are pretty sound and reliable. You can also build one that's better suited for whatever situation you will use it for, e.g., fast trigger, better flash for longer distances, etc. Quality per cost of a unit is much better. Range of cost is anywhere from $100 to $300 depending what you want in it. You can start at the low end and get a 1.5 second camera that is easier for your first build. For instance the camera that is shown above is only a 2 second camera but takes incredible pictures where you can really zoom into the detail without losing picture quality. That one is on the top end and cost be around $225 to build. Depending on the camera, there is fine soldering involved, but some are pretty easy if you are patient and take your time. These sites give detailed information on how to build your own including detailed information on how to hack many different cameras. Also a lot of other guys who are doing the same thing and welcome new comers. You will find a lot of help there.
 
Ireally like my Cuddeback capture, Great claity and great trigger speed, as well as great battery life, same set of batteries since Sept. Have pics of deer, coons, coyotes, and birds as they fly by. Others may be better, but for $200, it would be hard pressed.
 
I'm on the moultrie bus too. I've go both the M40 ($100) and I40 ($200 -$220). I think the extra $100 was well worth it. I've been very pleased with the picture quality and battery life, as well as range. I've taken several thousand pics on it and still have more than 50% battery life. Thats mostly been on the low quality setting with it on corn as well as trails. A friend of mine has tried the $100 Bushnell from w-mart and it was nothing but trouble and very few pics with poor quality. He also has the $100 Wildgame and has pretty good battery life but the range and quality is nothing near the moultrie. I've been told too many times of cuddebacks having to be sent back because of problems to justify the money. My next camera will definitely be an I40 or at least a moultrie.
 
I had a Moultrie. Unfortunately there customer service leaves a lot to be desired. Mine died a couple of months ago. I sent it in for repairs and its like pulling teeth to get them to respond. They don't return phone calls. My wife was on hold for over an hour, twice. Too bad, becuase when it worked, it worked well. My next one will be a Bushnell.
 
I bought a Moultrie I40 back in November. What a POS!!!! Never worked right. I recently bought a Cuddeback Capture with flash. Awesome camera! I have a ton of coyote pics over bait. The flash doesn't bother them at all. They keep coming back almost every night. The quality of the pics are excellent. I've bought 3 Stealth Cams(junk) and the 1 Moultrie(junk). I should have spent the money right in the first place.
 
The ones I build myself!

I run 6 digital still cameras and 1 DVR. And a remote slave flash. All of them homebrew's.

My oldest camera is 5 years old now and spends September thru June in the field. Only a couple of my cameras are out 12 months a year. 90° in the summer, -30° in the winter. Rain, sleet, hail, snow...
 
I got a pair of cuddebacks. one no flash and another flash. Wish they were both no flash. The one helped me take the buck I shot with my bow.
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That is a night time pic with the no flash.

This is a daytime pic with it.
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I have a Moultrie I40. After having it for over 2 years, I finally replaced the original batteries about 10 days ago. I don't leave it out all year, but it had taken over 3000 pics on one set of (6 D cell) batteries. I have it set up over a corn pile since deer season is out, and as of last night it has taken 960 pictures since this past Saturday. The battery meter yesterday was still at 88%. Picture quality is awesome in the daytime and very good at night. You can buy a cheaper camera and you will spend enough on batteries in 6 months to have bought a good camera. If you get the I40, I have a very simple mod that I do to the SD cards so they are easy to get out.

EDIT: I just read through some of the posts and saw one where a guy referred to the Moultrie camera as a POS. If I had bought one that didn't work, I would have felt the same way. I will tell you my experience with my first one. The original one that I bought stopped working after about a week. I was PO'd. I live about 1 1/2 hours from the Moultrie place and I was on vacation so I drove down there to get another camera. They pulled the broken one apart to see why it wasn't working. The guy said, "this isn't our fault, a battery ruptured and leaked acid into the camera." I looked at it and he was right. The battery was deformed and leaking acid. There was corrosion all inside the brains of the camera. He then turned around, grabbed a new camera in the box and handed it to me and said I hope this one works out for you. That's pretty dang good customer service.
 
From a week ago Saturday until this past Sunday, 8 nights, 7 days, my Moultrie I40 took 1590 game pictures. Went from 95% on battery meter to 72%. That's hard to beat.
 
From a week ago Saturday until this past Sunday, 8 nights, 7 days, my Moultrie I40 took 1590 game pictures. Went from 95% on battery meter to 72%. That's hard to beat.
 


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