Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

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Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by pete1 » 30 Nov 2018, 8:32 pm

Anyone be using cheap trail cam off ebay?
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by Gaznazdiak » 30 Nov 2018, 8:40 pm

Yes.
And no they are not really worth the effort.
Not too bad in daylight, but the extremely long trigger time means that only the slowest moving target will be captured.

Better to pay more for a realistic trigger time.
You can get 0.3 sec for reasonable money.
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by Oldbloke » 30 Nov 2018, 9:28 pm

Gaznazdiak wrote:Yes.
And no they are not really worth the effort.
Not too bad in daylight, but the extremely long trigger time means that only the slowest moving target will be captured.

Better to pay more for a realistic trigger time.
You can get 0.3 sec for reasonable money.


Agree. By all reports the Aldi ones seem the go. I'll grab one next time they have them. The cheapos work but only just.
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by TassieTiger » 30 Nov 2018, 10:19 pm

I bought one of these and liked it so much I bought another two. They work very well day and night.
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by Gaznazdiak » 01 Dec 2018, 10:29 am

Good onya Tas, now my inner 7yo is going ballistic, running round in circles demanding one of them :roll:

Seriously though, that's a good price, what's the trigger time?
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by TassieTiger » 01 Dec 2018, 11:05 am

.4 secs is advertised - and realistically That’s pretty accurate.
Sensitivity needs to be turned to absolute lowest or you get moths setting it off.
Night time could be better but still identify animals (ppls faces) to 30m directly in front and 15m on the tightest angles.
Day time / lowlight etc is brilliant.
Best thing for myvuse was that there is no indicator light showing they are on - so they can do double duty for security.
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by marksman » 01 Dec 2018, 11:12 am

all the cheapo one's are cheapo one's pete1 :thumbsdown:
I realise there are plenty of people who are very happy with the cheap cameras and good for them :thumbsup:
I have been using these for a couple of years now and rate them very highly :drinks:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2x-Little-Ac ... 1438.l2649
they are very good, in fact so good 3 farmers who I have shown picture to have bought several to catch poachers :huh:
I actually rate these trail cameras as pretty cheap :drinks:
Image
Image
if the camera you want to buy has no factory back up, you are throwing your money away IMHO :allegedly:
all electronics can have bugs and glitches, especially what you are going to leave out in the elements :wtf:
you need to be able to update software and have factory support :thumbsup:

the only thing these dont do is send a message to your phone, thats ok for me cause I dont have one :lol:
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by Gaznazdiak » 01 Dec 2018, 11:43 am

marksman wrote:all the cheapo one's are cheapo one's pete1 :thumbsdown:
I realise there are plenty of people who are very happy with the cheap cameras and good for them :thumbsup:
I have been using these for a couple of years now and rate them very highly :drinks:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2x-Little-Ac ... 1438.l2649
they are very good, in fact so good 3 farmers who I have shown picture to have bought several to catch poachers :huh:
I actually rate these trail cameras as pretty cheap :drinks:
Image
Image
if the camera you want to buy has no factory back up, you are throwing your money away IMHO :allegedly:
all electronics can have bugs and glitches, especially what you are going to leave out in the elements :wtf:
you need to be able to update software and have factory support :thumbsup:

the only thing these dont do is send a message to your phone, thats ok for me cause I dont have one :lol:


One caveat to your post marksman, you have to be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the update you apply is definitely the one for your EXACT model.

The cheapo I bought was not great, so in my ignorance, I tried to update the firmware. Apparently the update I tried to install was for a different model of the same brand, and it is now a pile of dead plastic.

You cannot reverse the update and if you stuff it up as I did the camera is permanently buggered.

Be warned.
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by marksman » 01 Dec 2018, 12:14 pm

very good point Gaz
I have also heard of guy's who buy the cheap copy's of name brands who think the support for the original will work but it wont :thumbsdown:
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by Stix » 01 Dec 2018, 12:49 pm

Hey marksman...can i ask--do you know if the light it sends out is red or actually IR...?

Reason i ask is i use a couple of the aldi ones which im reasonably happy with (well tbh one of them is faulty, but ill get b it swapped)..& the light it sends out for night pics is actually red...ok when on private property & out of vision from public roads, but i use them where i think foxes are entering property & worry that if i leave them there between trips that someone will notice the red light & pinch them...
So wondering if the ones you use are the same...?
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by TassieTiger » 01 Dec 2018, 2:09 pm

marksman wrote:all the cheapo one's are cheapo one's pete1 :thumbsdown:
I realise there are plenty of people who are very happy with the cheap cameras and good for them :thumbsup:
I have been using these for a couple of years now and rate them very highly :drinks:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2x-Little-Ac ... 1438.l2649
they are very good, in fact so good 3 farmers who I have shown picture to have bought several to catch poachers :huh:
I actually rate these trail cameras as pretty cheap :drinks:
Image
Image
if the camera you want to buy has no factory back up, you are throwing your money away IMHO :allegedly:
all electronics can have bugs and glitches, especially what you are going to leave out in the elements :wtf:
you need to be able to update software and have factory support :thumbsup:

the only thing these dont do is send a message to your phone, thats ok for me cause I dont have one :lol:


Agree also with these comments to some extent.
I work with cameras for my tech department at work (cctv, remote monitoring, security, etc)and I spent a LONG time comparing various claims and outputs of cams before committing.
You can spend a lot of money for very little additional benefit and some cams stand head and shoulders above others for less.
3G cams - do not get anything rated low glow. A lot of money can walk away when someone spots them...matters not if you have a message saying your cam has gone off and here is a pic of the muzzle...flash...blackness lol. SIM cards can be abused...
Also - not all ratings are exactly the same. Two cams rated as 1080 def can have very different outputs because even the resellers don’t understand wtf they are taking about.

Tbh and frank and I honestly don’t want to start a mines better than yours discussion - it’s not the case. If the cameras I purchased had such a narrow field of view as the night time screen shot example given here, I’d be a little upset - it might be thectrigger point distance marksman?? But the FOV appears only a few metres wide. The day time fov is excellent, nice and wide and clear.

If I get time, I’ll put up an example of the ones I have - no promises - if a tassie devil finding, then trying to kill one of mine. It’s bloody funny but I’ve got a bit on at moment.
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by marksman » 01 Dec 2018, 7:13 pm

it has an IR light but when the battery's are running out it flash's a red light, I only use energiser max battery's and still have charge after 4 weeks
I did give the energiser heavy duty battery's a go but they only lasted 4 days, not enough charge
some look straight into it, I think they can hear a noise from it or a smell on it but I'm not 100% sure

Image
these three are at 3 meters away

Image
this is the same spot same distance

Tassie it sounds like you really know what your talking about,
really I can only say that I am very happy with these little acorns cameras that I have
the night time pigs are roughly 6 foot from from the camera, that is a big boar in front
the fence post in the back of the photo is 3 foot high and the little pig is the size of the day time pigs :thumbsup:

I should say to Tassie I'm not comparing the acorns with yours just saying I like the acorns :drinks:
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by TassieTiger » 01 Dec 2018, 7:57 pm

Nah man, all good, that last shot with the deer at night is spot on. That’s the sort of distance I’d expect - pretty cool.
And your day time in second looks better again than first - the fact you can zoom and not have the actual pic pixalate and lose quality is excellent.

They are a lot of fun and blow me away what happens at night.
Mine can take 4 AA BUT has a another 4 you can use to extend the life via clip on compartment - but if I set to medium quality, 15 sec clips - inside 72 hours I’m at 1/2 power because I’ll have 200 clips....wombats, possum, native cats, sugar gliders, birds, skippy, scorpions, BIG spiders and yeah - there is something that alerts the game as youve said, tassie devils try and rip the little man out from with in and they start stalking it from 20m away...
I tried to upload vid but too large - don’t want to YouTube that video...devils are a sore topic down here.

The one thing I dont like about mine is that you have to set the cameras to “on”- and then Install it. Which means 5 clips are taken whilst your messing around.

I have used mine to successfully prosecute garbage dumpers and thieves as well - which is why it was so important that there was no give away once recording activated. That being said IR do glow but you can get variant levels of low glow but unless you go big $ you will lose a little quality. Some flash a bloody big red LED when recording...
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by TassieTiger » 01 Dec 2018, 11:21 pm

I have been trying to uploads pics for an hour here...wrong type, too large, farrrkkkk.
So now I’ve resorted to taking iPhone photos of my computer screen - shiitttyy way to showcase the cams but geeezzzzz it’s hard.

I don’t hsve any stills from the cams (I only take vid) so these are paused low res vid which make them even shottier.
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Tikka .260 (Z5 5x25/52)
Steyr Pro Varmint .223 - VX 3
CZ455 .22 & Norinco .22 (vtex 4-12, bush 3-9)
ATA 686 U/O 12g & Baikal S/S 12g.
Adler a110 reddot
Sauer 30-06 - VX 3
Howa 300 win mag. SHV 5-20/56
Marlin SBL 45/70
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by Gaznazdiak » 02 Dec 2018, 10:24 am

Pretty good for pictures of a PC screen Tas :thumbsup:
The originals musty be quite crispy
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Re: Cheap trail cam. Worth it?

Post by marksman » 02 Dec 2018, 8:08 pm

my son in law installed imgur for me and although I'm not the best at this electronic software stuff it did not take long at all to get the hang of it, and its free :thumbsup: and does all the things you need to to post on forums :drinks:
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