Trail Camera newbie need some tips

[CaptainMusky]

I have never used or owned a trail camera until a week ago. I am having mixed results and I think its possibly my setup, but I wanted to hear from folks who are more seasoned.

I have several deer that are coming nightly to my yard and eating the feed I put out there.

I live out of town, but have houses on two sides of me and an open field to the back. The deer come out of the open field into my yard.

My setup. I have a Moultrie M80XT that I strap to the tree just under 3 ft from the ground about 15 feet from the food I put out.

The camera is facing the field in which the deer come from.

Problem is I am not getting very many photos. I get like one photo or so and the deer are out there several times a night and there for a decent amount of time moving around.

I have the photo delay set to 30 seconds.

I dont get ANY photos of the deer coming up to the food or leaving it. Its usually just standing there.

My thought is that since the deer are walking toward the camera it is having trouble detecting them. I have noticed this with motion sensing lights and figured it may apply here.

Thoughts?

The pictures I get are fantastic, I just dont get the volume I think I should. The IR flash works awesome and I get very nice photos at night with no blur.

If I walk in from the side of the camera view it usually snaps me before I get 2 feet into the frame. So I know it senses motion from the side well, but its the straight on that I think is troublesome.

Tonight I am going to reposition to get them as the walk toward the feed and see if that helps.

[skee0025]

I would increase the sensitivity on the camera, and move it back a bit. The closer you have the camera to the "target area" the smaller your activation range. I would also change the photo rate, set it to get as many pics as possible. With today's memory cards you can hold thousands of pics on one card.

[McGurk]

Try raising it a bit, like to maybe 4-5 ft up. Also about your settings, shorten up the time frame to 5 or 10 seconds between shots, and maybe enable multiple photos per "shot". I have a Moultrie M80 Black and I feel like it should take more shots, too, but I am pretty new with them, too. I amazed at the quality of the photos it does take, though, compared to a Hunten that I returned.

I cropped a couple of pics from the same spot to be the same size and resolution, and it is a ridiculous difference, no deer in the second pic:

Hunten:

Moultrie:

[CaptainMusky]

Thanks guys. I moved it to a different tree, put it up a little bit higher and positioned it for a more crossing shot as they come through.

I also set it to 10 seconds between photos but I didn't put multi shot on. I did get a "normal " speed SD card to see if that makes a difference.

My boys love seeing the deer and I check it daily so I will never fill it.

Thanks again!

[CaptainMusky]

Booya! The combination of things I did made the difference. I had 70 pictures this morning and they look great. I do need to put the camera a little higher, but it works great. I think it was a combination of repositioning it to a new tree where the deer cross to the feed and the new SD Card. The tech at Moultrie said the high speed chips cause some issues sometimes so just the standard sandisk is suggested.