Trail cameras

[Huntin&Fishin]

What is the best camera under 200 dollars in your guys opinion?

[x1957x]

I have found that the I-R 40 by moultrie is the best. Although sometimes it has reader problems on the digital screen. Only around the 150.00 range. I have had alot of issues with the digital stealth cams to. Cudde back has a good product although on the little more of the 200 price range. Problem is, if you put them out, who wants some yo-yo to steal it. It happens an I have had it happen. Thats why I dont want to spend a great amount on them. I have private land and about every 3rd year I have one stolen. No locks can keep out a thief. Good luck, moultrie is the way to go ( ir-40 ) is the best that I found. You wont be disappointed.

[Scoot]

I have three of the cameras that x1957x recommended and I don't have a similar experience. Mine have had great battery life and take pretty decent pictures. However, the trigger speed on them is so slow that I miss lots and lots of deer- I only get their hind end on many pics. I heard nothing but positive things when I bought them (found them on sale for a great price, so I got three). However, since then lots of people have complained about the slow trigger and I've found their complaints are warrented. I've tried every trick to make them work better, but haven't been overly happy. Just my .02 on them.

[tracker x-2]

I have several stealth cams and a couple moultres. I have found myself putting the stealth cams where I feel there will be more action. All cameras have there ups a downs a lot has do with the operator. Such as not placing them in the rising and setting sun, or aiming them down the trail instead of just where the deer cross's. I think for the price range your working with any name brand camera should do the trick for ya. Don't fall for the hype about cuddeback. They are really nice, but all you need do to take a picture and for their price range its an awful expensive picture.

[BoxMN]

slightly older unit, but you can find the moultrie ir55 for $84. I got two, my first cams, and so far pretty good, good quality pics, but I think tracker is right on that I have to learn a bit more how to place them, as I have gotten a few deer butts I think I placed it too close to where I wanted to actually take the pics.

Not sure of battery life, but the pic quality so far is really good, much better than I thought.

[newfish]

With Trail Cams you get what you pay for. You don't need to most expensive one to get the job done, because if it breaks or gets stolen what are you left with? However, going with the cheapest isn't always the greatest. I read an article that talked about around 200 dollars is a good midway point for trail cams for quality and price.

As all the other posts are saying Moultrie IR is a pretty solid brand. The only problem I have had with one of mine is the external display screen won't work on it but everything else works just fine (that happened the first year I had it). I would recommend them to anyone for cost and length of battery life, which around 5 months. Of course it all depends on how busy your camera is. I put mine out last year in April over mineral licks, then in August, change the batteries and moved the cameras. The batteries had about 15% life to them according to the cameras. I did not one problem with them from last year with taking pictures.

I first bought a few wildgame camera, good starter camera but poor battery life with it. The batteries would last about 10 days and after so many pictures the camera stopped working all together which was about 2-3 years of use. Again, great starter camera that is fairly inexpensive, less 100, but they will probably have issues.

One way to deal with slow trigger speeds is to aim the camera up or down the trail to catch the deer coming in. Moultrie I found is very good trigger speed. It has a built in aiming laser so when you set it up you turn that on to find the center of your shot, helps save a lot of time and guess work. The picture quality is very good. Only problem is if it take a picture either at dawn or dusk it will "burn" the image, the camera takes. What happens is the camera will take a night vision shot with to much light and you get a black and very bright white image that is hard to make out, but that is a small percentage of photos.

That is just my two cents.

[x1957x]

Yeah I have the burn out problem on my moultrie cams to,at sunrise and set. Other wise I have had good luck with mine. I took 467 pics and still had 30% batt. life left and that was when it was starting to get real cold which in turn usually drains batteries faster. I know that you have to and should point the cam more down the trail to get a faster and better response time. This I think is a practice that should try to be followed by more if possible. Good luck and hope this helps.

[Boar]

Hey 57 wat happing. I feel wen it comes to cams, a guy has to buy based on species he wants to shoot pics of which will be related to one of the most important features besides clarity, that is trigger speed. Unless, you have a salt block in front of your camera a deer just keeps walking by. A bigg plie of bait an bear stops an has a buffete lunch of all you can they can eat giving the camera plenty if shots as the bear spends ample time diggin around the site. The sad thing is cameras like cuddy which boast the fastest trigger speed are the fastest at draining your wallett to an are even harder to replace. Alot of guys get great pics of deer with out top shelf cameras, aiming the camera up the trail is good way to maximize trigger speeed, but with popular products these day a good deal of reasherch needed to get the camera best suited for u. I have a moultrie 6.0 IR an like alot, infeild viewing works good but really small. the SD card port is really bad so more time at the bait station is needed to swap out cards, had the moultrie 4.0 flash an is a great camrea, but flash drained the batteries quick an wen running copper tops in them thats very expensive. i have the moultrie D55 IR an really like it. used it first time last year an did a good job. For bear moultrie is a solid product. Later Boar

[Pooh]

i bought a wild game innovations ir 3, if i recall correctly. it took about 100 pics in a 3 week period and had about 1/2 battery left and most pictures being at night. the distance isnt the best but at 50 bucks on clearance i would buy 5 more and put em all over the place.

[LightningBG]

I've had real good luck with the Primos Truthcam 46.

List at the big C is 130, I got mine on sale for 99.

Battery life is good. I've taken hundreds of pictures throughout the winter, still on the first set of batteries. I couldn't tell you how many pics, because that first set hasn't run out yet. Its an IR flash.

Here are some of the pics. (temp doesn't always work (as you can see), but I dont really care about the temp anyways.)

[DHost21]

Bushnell Trophy cam has been great for me! I havent had 1 complaint. Good pictures and great battery life. Also I have the Primos truth cam 46 and it is great too! Just a little bigger than the bushnell is the only downfall and it is very minor

[lungdeflator]

You can find cuddes for well under 200$ now some places. And they came out with their new one that is right under 200$. If you have the money to spend, its worth it to spend it on a good cam if your serious and really enjoy the pics.

[killerelement]

I have had 0 luck with cuddes!!!, they seem to be a 1 or 2 year camera,,

had some luck with a old moultrie think it was a 590? bats did good but they were d's....

have tried some cheap wildview ones that were given to me,, seemed to be poor pic quality on the old versions...

I have reconyx now,, more money but I think it's wort it if kept on your own land,, no spendy to get stolen......lol

[jay83196]

I have about 15 cameras a few cuddys several moultrie a truth cam wild views and have had stealth cams. I wouldn't waste the money on a Ir camera not worth the money and battery life isn't that much better and the flash doesn't bother animals at all. I have big bucks standing in front of flashes for hours I have bear sleeping 5' away from a camera flash after flash and the low light pics on Ir are not as good in my opinion. I like the cuddy speed but lack of features are a draw back moultries for the price are my favorite but its far more important to have camera placement, for example don't aIm at rising sun or sunset avoid shadows and aIm it down the trail rather than across it so you get longest area of movement for more pics.

[nonteepical]

What i hate about my cuddeback (expert model) is the recovery time can be only set at a minimum of 1 minute. I set the camera up in front of one of my bowstands and witnessed on several occasions deer pass by, that should have had their picture taken, but the camera already took a previous picture and was recovering and misses the deer, it needs a burst mode or alot quicker recovery time. My bushnell trophy cam i've had no problems with, the 2010 models can be found on the internet now for $135. I agree with Jay83 flash has no affect on deer, i've witnessed that first hand by having my camera infront of my bowstand and seeing their reaction. I have a wildview and 2 wildgame cameras, of the 3 only one is still working, but it eats batteries.

[jay83196]

The cuddy price and lack of options just isn't worth the price the pic quality is fair at best. I will say they mount easy and open and card replacement is great. But bottom line id get two 100$ moultrie over one cuddy, better to have to locations covered and be able to set the cameras up the may you want with more options.

[DAD-N-EYE]

I also agree on the Primos Truth cam 46. Ive seen thousands of pics and still 50% batt life plus! There video mode is pretty top notch also. I got 150 30sec videos and still at 70% battery. My buddy had his out during muzz season last year in the -15 degree stuff. He got 4500 pics in a week and it was still at 60% battery.