I am using a trail camera for the first time this year. I finally bought my first one today, and hope to buy a couple more in the near future. But, I am curious about the best option for a couple of settings. I know absolutely nothing about photography or trail cameras, but the cam is a Moultrie A-20. It was on sale and also came with an SD card and batteries so it seemed like a good deal. In retrospect, I'm now realizing I probably should have done a little more research on the different brands/models before buying, but oh well. The options for "Detection Delay" are 0 sec, 15 sec, 30 sec, 1min or 5 min. The options for "Capture Mode" are 1 photo/low resolution, 1 photo/high res, 3 photos/low res, 3 photos/high res or video. I'm curious as to which settings will yield optimal performance. I have an 8GB card for it, and will probably be checking about every couple of weeks, so I'm not sure if I should be worried about running out of storage or not. Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks!
What kind of area are you putting it? On trails where deer are just walking by I'll set it to take as many photos as quickly as it can. If it's a food source or mineral site, I'll use the delay so one deer will not fill my whole card. It all depends on it's position and intended use.
That makes sense, thanks! I will probably put it over a food source. How long of a delay would you recommend?
I typically run my cameras on a 15 second delay, 3 photo burst, medium resolution. Since medium isn't an option for you I'd go with low resolution to get started. The A-20 takes a 2 MP 1600x1200 image which is plenty big to see what's in it. Those photos should be around 2-3 MB each so an 8 GB card should be able to store 2,500 to 3,000 images before it fills up. If you opt for the high res 12 MP images they're going to be around 12-15 MB per image and you'll get somewhere around 500-600 images per card. If anything you can start on the low res setting and see how many photos your camera is averaging each time you check it. If you're getting 100 or 200 images you can bump the resolution up safely.
