The trail camera

  

After a lot of research, I ended up purchasing a Bushnell Trophy Cam at Amazon.com. In the end, for the features I wanted, it came down to the HCO Scoutguard or the Trophy Cam and I decided on the Trophy Cam due to a slight price advantage at the time. The Trophy Cam is small, features 3, 5, or 8 MP resolution, infrared night vision, and the ability to capture pictures or video. Most important, the camera has a very fast trigger time (the time it takes from when it senses an animal to when it takes the picture), a battery life of up to 1 year, and a relatively cheap price for a camera with its features. Trigger time is critical for catching animals on the move. On slower cameras, the animal may already be out of the screen when the picture is taken.


Here are the main web sites I used to make my decision-
Trail camera review site: http://www.trailcampro.com/bushnelltrophycamreview.aspx
Trail camera "shootout": http://www.trailcampro.com/2009trailcamerashootout.aspx

Due to the fact the hunting land is crowded with hunters, I also purchased a custom lock box on Ebay from the RC Store and a Master Lock Python Locking Cable.

After receiving all the items, I set it up in my back yard to make sure it was working properly. Below are some of the images I captured over about a week of testing. Click on the images for larger versions. There were no deer, but it did capture a squirrel (and my neighbor) during the day and quite a few pictures of a cat at night. The pictures taken during the day looked great. The pictures at night were dark around the edges and a little fuzzy, but I am going to increase the number of batteries in the unit from 4 to 8. From what I've read, this should help improve the IR flash and the night time pictures. I am looking forward to see what it captures in the woods...
~Joe