Are there any consistently reliable Trail Cams out there?

[AJMD429]

On reviewing the various Trail Cams out there, it seems they ALL have reviews mixed with many 5-stars about how wonderful that model is, and yet many 1-stars about how lousy they are and no warranty service, etc. I assume it is some sort of thing where they are all basically using the same software chip, and made in China, but sold under different labels. If you are lucky enough to get a functioning one, you're happy, and if not, you just threw $200-300 down the hole, and may as well get another brand and try your luck again.

Are there any brands you guys find CONSISTENTLY of good quality, or at least with decent warranty service?

It seems like they'd not be that difficult to make - a halfway decent digital camera and an infrared motion detector - things you could get separately for $50 and $20 respectively. Why do $300 ones have such marginal performance?

[deerwhacker444]

Check out this thread for my opinion.!

http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewt ... =1&t=20551

[Leverdude]

I'v been useing a $99 Walmart Moultree digital for 4 or 5 years now & cant think of a bad thing to say about it.

[Old Time Hunter]

Pretty much the luck of the draw, but in answer to your question...NO. The cheap throw away I have hang'n in a tree year in year out, just change the batteries works without a flaw. It is some off the wall cheap one that I got from Cheaper Than Dirt. The $400 dollar ones are junk in a day or two.

[cnjarvis]

Check out this thread for my opinion.!

http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewt ... =1&t=20551

Missed this thread the first time through...

My Moultrie 4.0 takes decent pics but not as good as DW444's and my only complaint is that the IR sensor seems a bit whimsical. Frequently it will trip with nothing in the photo and many times it will take a photo of game at my feeder and not take another one for 30 min to an hour when it's obvious that the critters have been there the whole time.

[86er]

We've used four different kinds in ME bear camp and finally settled on Cuddeback. It is not effected by the changing temperatures and it seems to have less false triggers, plus it has kept working since last year with one change of batteries. There are 3 of them running there, one is a No Flash and I am not sure of the model name on the other two.

[slowhandscotty]

I recently took the plunge into the world of trail camera's. I got a Bushnell 5.0 megapixel Trophy cam. It was 199 at Cabela's. http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templ ... ISO-8859-1 It has performed great so far. I like that it takes the SD cards and AA's, also it is smaller than most. So far the battery life has been pretty good I've got over 2 weeks of use and 300+ pictures with the battery indicator still showing full. I'm sure there are some out there that bought this camera and got a lemon. I think they all can say that. They're made in china so what do you expect. Hope that helps

[Mike8623]

Well................here is my experience down and dirty.............They all promise the world but beware............I've got 3 each one a different brand and from 100.00 up to 600.00. it is not necesarrlily what you pay in some instances. I've got a Stealth, a Leaf River and a old Buckeye cam............................The buckeye is hands down the best, overall,............but they are expensvie. I've had the cams 3 years..........all but the buckeye seem to get slower..........................Batteries is a big deal...............if you use the flash and get a lot of activity in one night you're gonna need new batteries, except the buckeye...................trigger speed........real important.................but none of them do what they say they will do........at least with mine............the buckeye again does the best.............but not as fast as advertised.........the buckeye has a computer base station............but it takes forever to transfer the pictures.........again this is with the older model and I've had trouble with email thing................again............customer service is so so.......even with the buckeye................if it were me and I had it to do over again I would either bite the bullet and go with buckeye or I would buy a lot of the cheaper cams and not use the night flash.............oh and in the winter they really slow down, except the buckeye, in the extreme hot they again slow down..............the best picture (stealth cam)

anyway my 2 cents worth based on the cams I have

[hondo1892]

I've had leaf river and cuddebacks. The leaf river was slow on triggering and missed the critter sometimes and night photo's were washedout looking. Other than that it was ok. I bought a cuddeback excite and it has a much faster trigger time. Gave good photo's, good night photo's and battery life was good. I lost my compact flash card and now the darn thing won't work. Called cuddeback and they would have done warinty work but it was too old. A little over a year and a repair for it was almost as much as getting it replaced. I went for the replacement. Cuddeback seems to have good customer service. When I talked to the lady on the phone she told me to try a couple of different things befor I sent it back but nothing worked. Seems like the technolagy changes so fast that any of the cameras are outdated almost as soon as you buy one. This fact makes them all throw aways unfortunatly.