Trail Camera?

[Bagley]

I just bought the Leaf River DC 1BU camera. After I set it up and put it out I waited a couple of minutes and walked in front of it to see if it would take a picture. The first time I walked slowly by about 5 yards away. The camera didn't even take a picture till I was way past and out of the camera's veiwing area. The second time I walked by I got the same results.

Is there a way to speed up the triggering on these cameras? Or did I just waste $270.00.

[Gissert]

The trigger is a bit slow on the Leaf Rivers. I put a mineral block out and that stops them cold long enough for multiple pictures. I had six bucks at once on one photo.

Try angling the camera up or down the trail, and you should get better results than pointing it across the trail.

The battery life on the Leaf River units is amazing. I am still on my same set of batteries as in may, after 600-700 images.

[Powerstroke]

Probably the greatest shortcoming of digi trail cams is not the trigger timing exactly but the time it takes to "power-up" the digital camera and then take the shot.

I don't remember where I found it, but a site I was looking through was timing the startup times of digi trail cams. Some were a couple seconds and others were closer to 10 secs.

Digital is nice and cheaper in the long run, but if you're looking for quality pics the 35mm versions are faster. I like to put out the digi when I don't know what I've got (with a block or some food item) and then if I like the activity level then I will place the 35mm version for higher quality pics.

[Gofishleech]

Mine trigers in about 4 seconds, have tersted it many times. I hear the new ones have a fast triger switch. I also heard the larger or cheaper the media card you use - the slower the start up. I have been using 128mb cards. I also set it up with the slow triger in mind. I have been setting it up on scrapes now and it works great, seems like evry deer in the area stops and smells a scrape. Last year I was able to set up mock scrapes and get some pictures.

10 seconds sounds like a long time, you may want to call LR and they may be able to help you. There customer service is great.

[BLACKJACK]

Is that really true that the larger the media card, the slower it is taking a picture??? That doesn't make sense to me... I've got one 512mb card, guess I'll have to buy a 64 mb card and run some tests. Gissert had some good advice, put it over a block or facing down the trail. The Leaf Rivers are good cameras, they take nice pictures, the service is good, it just takes 4-5 seconds to activate and as Gissert says, the battery life is outstanding!

[Bagley]

I wonder if the Leaf river with the Infrared flash would have a quicker trigger time? I was thinking this because there is no bulb flash to charge up.

I guess I was expecting more with the camera I bought. I would say the response time on it is closer to 15 seconds. The cheap stealth cam I had was quicker than that. I'll have to call L.R. and ask them what there average trigger time is for the DC 1.

[The Yeti]

With most of these cams, digital or not, how close does the animal have to be in order to get a picture?

[luckey]

The cuddeback triggers in .63 seconds. I have used several cameras and if it takes longer than a second to trigger, it is almost useless. Ok, it will work if you can get a deer to stand and pose for the shot. lol.

[KrashR]

Bagley, I thought the same thing after I used my DC-1 camera, over half of the pictures were of nothing or just a deers behind. I repositioned the camera to a different tree and I just switched out memory cards last night and had about 6 pictures of no deer out of 22, and I'm pretty sure those were from the sun because they were all within a few minutes right at sunset. I wouldn't give up on that camera yet, but I have been emailing leaf river and they told me the new DC-2 units have a fast trigger switch, also the IR-3 units have come standard with the fast trigger switch. I was going to buy a DC-2 on hsolist, but the guy wouldn't open the box to see if it was a newer unit or not, and the leaf river guy told me the only way to check is to open the unit to see if the switch is there or not. I have a IR-3 unit on order from Cabelas and it should be here tomorrow. I hope it doesn't take as long to charge up since there is no flash, but I also hope it can get good pictures at night out to at least 20 ft. I'll post some pictures when I get them from my memory card later today. In the meantime checkout this HSOforum for some GREAT info on all models of cameras. I was thinking about a cuddeback until I found out they don't have a quick shot mode and the reviews said it was around 1 second trigger time as was the IR-3.

[Bagley]

Krash,

I originally wanted the IR 3. Went to cabelas on saturday and they didn't have it. They just had the DC 1 and I believe the C 1. I settled for the DC 1. I watched that commercial on the CuddeBack HSOforum and it was quite a bit faster than all the other cameras. The only thing was when you would look at the picture the guy walking by was a lot farther from the camera than what the video showed???? Was this test legit????

I would like to hear how that IR 3 turns out for you. If cabelas had them, I would go and exchange for it. Can you purchase stuff from the cabelas HSOforum with a cabelas gift card. I see they have a number on them.

I want a camera I can leave out under my stand so I can see what I miss when I am not there.

[KrashR]

Bagley, it looks like my link was deleted, even thought it was just for a HSOforum that had reviews and didn't sell anything..... If you want the link send an email to me at zsnopro at hotmail dot com. I haven't looked at the commercial on the cuddeback HSOforum but I'm sure it is at least a tad bit skewed. I don't think you can use that gift card from cabelas for online purchases, at least you can't if it was from the "grand opening" deal. They told me the only way to get a IR-3 was to order it from online.

[Bagley]

I saw it before it was deleted. Thanks. Pretty good info there if you are looking to buy a trail camera. They say pretty good things about the IR 3. For IR cameras they recommend the Recon brand for cameras under $500. The thing is, it costs $499. A little too pricey for me. As for the gift card, I can't use it for online purchases, I tried. Hopefully the store will order the IR 3 for me, because I will probably just get in-store credit when I return the DC 1.

Bagley

[KrashR]

Bagley, I just posted my pics under the other topic in here.

[Bagley]

They look like pretty good pictures. Do you have your camera on the High resolution or Medium. I think mine is set on medium. Plus, I also noticed from your pictures that the time displayed is 24H not 12H. My time is going to be 12 hours off. Oh well. The way I have my camera set up (pointing across the trail) I won't be able to tell if the deer is a buck or doe anyway, unless they have antlers growing on their butts.

Cabelas in owatonna has the IR 3 coming in this week. I think i'll trade mine in. Color pictures are nice though.

Bagley

[KrashR]

I think it is medium, whatever 2 megapixels is. For high resolution you need to use graphic interpolation or something. I just read about the black and white pictures, I hope they mean that is only for nightime, if so I might just be keeping my DC-1, I plan to have scent or mineral blocks out in front of it anyways to get them to stop long enough to take a picture.

[Bagley]

I believe the pictures are only black an white at night. But then again thats when most pictures are taken. The quality and resolution will be compared to the camera that you have right now.

Bagley