Sunday, August 30, 2009

Homebrew Trail Camera: The Moment of Truth

Saturday afternoon I had the opportunity to check my new, homemade trail camera for the first time. It had been in the woods for just about two weeks, and I couldn't wait to see how the camera worked. One of the things I like about this camera is that it has an LCD screen built in on the back of the camera to view the images. So there was no waiting until I got home to view the pictures - like with my commercially-made cameras. I knelt down on the ground where the camera is located and was able to immediately see what was captured on the camera.

The camera had performed as good or better than I had hoped. I was surprised to see that it had taken 262 pictures and had completely filled the 512MB memory stick. The batteries in the camera had run out, but they had lasted long enough to fill the card with pictures. The resolution on this camera is 4.1 megapixels, and in my opinion, the picture quality is definitely better than any of my store-bought trail cameras. I replaced the memory stick with a 1GB capacity card, so hopefully it will have enough room to not run out of space before I check it again.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the first batch of pictures. These have not been edited other than me adding the date and time to the bottom right-hand corner of the pictures. You should be able to click on the picture to open it up full size for better viewing. Tell me what you think.



These last two pictures show the quick follow up picture that this camera will take. With my Cuddeback cameras, once they trigger and snap a picture, they will not take another picture for at least 30 seconds. In this instance, the Cuddeback camera would have triggered on the first deer and then would have missed the 8-point buck when he walked by 9 seconds later.

5 comments:

Albert A Rasch said...

Nice Work!

Now I might have to do something similar.

I'll highlight your camera adaptation on my blog rodeo for the coming week too.

Best regards,
Albert
Trophy Merriam’s Turkey
Fallow Deer: Hints and Tips

Anonymous said...

Awesome pictures for sure. I am out a trail camera and the more and more I see these pictures the more I wish I had gone out and replaced the one that died.

Mike Shimniok said...

Those are outstanding pictures! Wow. Nicely done. Sounds like this has a lot of advantages over the store bought cameras.

Just kind of thinking out loud but as for batteries running out, the camera's lifespan could be improved. Just need more capacity, perhaps in the form of wiring in more AA's in parallel. If the camera has a DC in port, you could make a custom battery pack of appropriate voltage and plug in. If not, I have another idea that wouldn't alter the camera in any way.

Ferg said...

NICE! I would have to say it was a huge success. I need a couple of those.

Tom said...

Very nice pictures. They sure look better than a lot of the images I see from higher end cameras you buy at the store. Good job man!