Survival and Emergency Preparedness

David wrote: ↑Thu Dec 16, 2021 9:43 pm I'm seriously thinking about getting one for the backyard. There are a lot of deer in the area as well as the gators. Since my backyard literally backs up to a pond in the back and retention low land to the side of the pond and conservation land beyond the pond I'm figuring there will be some activity at night.

Beware, they are kind of addicting. The deer with the funky antlers was taken with 2 cheapest ($35 & $40) Chinese cams off of Amazon. Not too bad. My suggestion however is buy a $30 Tasco from Walmart and try it out first. Also Chinese but they are the cheapest you can get, have a brand name and get decent reviews.

Thank you sir

Was just up at the house over the weekend hunting. Downloaded some of the Tasco pics but forgot to bring them home. Both the night and day shots were pretty good overall. Simple setup and use and only $30. So good so far.

Having said that, if all you need/want is wildlife pics the Tasco is fine. If you want something for security something with more mega pixels would be better as they are clearer when blown up. You may not be able to read a license plate at the lower mega pixels. The Tasco is 8 mp.

I have 2 Coverts that are 18 and two that are 16 mp. I have a Covert 18 at the front of the house to ID people visiting when I'm not there.. All the Coverts can be set between 8 and 16 or 8 & 18. Both of the other Chinese cams are 16 mp.

The other thing to look for is shutter response speed, particularly for security use. Slow response speeds means you miss moving objects, or just catch the tail end of them. The Covert 18s have a shutter speed of .4 secs. The 16s are .9 sec. The Tasco is 1 second. The Wosport (chinese) is .55 secs, the Hawkray (chinese) is the fastest at .25 secs.

The Covert 18s were on sale for $69/ea. + tax. The Covert 16s were on sale for $70 ea/shipped. The Tasco was $30 + tax at Walmart. The Wosports was $40 shipped on Amazon. The Hawkray was $47 shipped but includes a micro SD card and batteries from Amazon. Overall the Hawkray has the best specs. It's the only one that directly uses a micro SD card which is a PITA to put in and take out particularly with cold fingers. All are made in China.

The camera images that say MAC5 are from the Hawkray. Most of the other images are the old Covert cams which are pretty much the same cameras as the newer Covert 16s. There is a Wosports image in there, the color shot of weird antlered deer. I not sure what mega pixels I set the cameras at. They are variable and I tend to use the lower end except for security shots.

I will also say that the technology is way better than it used to be. Even the cheapest cameras take better pics than the best cameras did 10 years go. The newest thing is cell cameras. I not only have very spotty cell service on my property but I don't really need to see every friggin animal who walks by as it happens. Would like it for security however. When/if we ever get internet I'll probably hook up real security cameras around the house.

Dave,

While thinking about it for awhile you may be better off setting up security cameras run directly to your house or wirelessly through the internet. They do have solar powered wifi cams or even plug in power. You can look at them on your phone and/or computer.

My brother uses Wyze cameras around his house. I think they were about $20 when he got them but they're twice that now.

Re above...
I do beta testing for the Arlo cameras since retired from Electronics at PD.
Yes, wireless cams work well, but will say NOTHING beats a hard wired system.
much to do with the rez and picture quality you can push thru the unit.

Also, Thing to consider... if on batteries, even with solar to recharge, most will not charge at below freezing ( doing so can damage the li-ion cell pack )
So if in a colder area, you'll need to swap out batteries every 2 months or so.
Wifi jammers are also starting to pop up here and there

The addiction continues.

Just picked up a couple more trail cameras at a flash sale at Dunhams Sports. Stealthcam WV12s for $30 ea. 12 mp, .7 sec shutter speed. Burst mode & video. That's about half price and they get good reviews.

Thought I would put up some more pics. I just put the Stealthcams up last weekend so haven't pulled any photos off them yet.

This first one is the Wosports camera at night. It gives pretty good even illumination. That coyote is a good 40-45 feet away.



Note that the Wosports doesn't give the Temperature and moon phase like some of the others.

And the Wosports during the day. Not too bad.



The second is the Tasco at night. It's pretty bright but the light is narrowly focused. The buck is about 30 feet away. Picture quality is grainy.



The Tasco during the day. Kind of foggy that day and late in the afternoon. Note that it gives the moon phase but not the temp.



Here's another Tasco day shot. Kinda grainy



This is the Hawkray. It is very bright and focused tends to wash out the picture. Buck is about 20 feet away Even though it is infrared the light is quite visible to the naked eye. It glows red when it triggers and deer can see infrared light anyways so I get a lot of deer in the headlights photos. It attracts their attention.



And the Hawkray during the day. Gives both the moon phase and temperature.



This is the Covert 18 Gamekeeper. It's light isn't as strong as the others and thus has a shorter range. That buck is about 20 feet away. Disregard the date. I have trouble with the dates on these cameras. These do give temp and moon phase.



Here's the other Covert 18 Gamekeeper, it's on the back ridge. Again kind of short range illumination. Again, disregard the date on this one, for some reason it keep defaulting to 2019. I keep resetting it. Those pics are actually from October of 2021.



And the same camera and fighting bucks during the day. Pic was taken in Sept of 2021

And just to give you an idea of quality. Here a shot of a couple nice bucks from the food plot camera both the original and when cropped and blown up. You can tell the quality when it's blown up.

Original


Cropped

Just an update.

Keeping these cameras up and running is a constant thing. They tend to run the batteries down, the SD cards fail, the programing fails or you forget to turn them on or put the SD cards back in them. It's always something.

On a better note, I got contacted by the people who sell the Wosports camera I bought last year. I wrote an unflattering review of it on Amazon so they contacted me and offered to send me a new camera to try out. I said "sure" so 3 days later I got a new camera. Basically a $45 camera. It's bigger than my original Wosports. I put it up a couple weeks ago and have checked it once. Not much on it yet. I will check it again this coming weekend


Here's the description...
Trail Camera,30MP 1920P FHD 0.2S Trigger Motion Activated,Game Hunting Camera with Night Vision IP66 Waterproof 2.0''LCD 120°Wide Camera Lens for Outdoor Scouting Wildlife Monitoring Home Security. Comes with a 32mb SD card.

I will say that the IF illuminator is pretty bright and visible to the naked eye.

One thing I like about the other small Wosports camera is that it takes only 4 AA batteries and I've yet had to change them.

Not to mention it's small and stealthy

As the 2023 deer season winds down I thought I would do an update...

The wosports camera I mentioned above has been going for over a year now and has worked well. Takes decent pics.

The smaller Wosports camera is okay but uses a micro SD card which is a PITA to deal with. Hard to change put in/pull out with cold fingers and you need an adapter to use it in your computer or card reader.

This past weekend a guy on the michigan gun owners (MGO) forum had three Muddy trail cams which he said wouldn't turn on. He was giving them to whoever wanted them. He lived fairly close so I picked them up on Tuesday when I was home from the woods house. I took them home and cleaned the battery contacts and got two of them working. The other I had to take apart and fiddle with the wiring but I got it working as well.

I contacted the guy and told him I got them working and that he could have 2 back and i would keep one for fixing them. He said he'd already bought new ones and I could keep them. Well... okay then, merry Christmas to you as well.

The issue now of course is keeping them all up and running with batteries and SD cards. Checking them is a PITA as well.

I'll probably keep the new ones as spares in case one of my others crap out.