Anyone use one of these? What are the good and the bad of them? I've done a ton of research on it and it sounds like it has many uses and the picture quality is the only downfall as 90% of the pictures are from a distance like 100' or more. Pro's sound like you get more of a better count on the game what's is in your bush! Any feed back would be appreciated. Thanks Rocky
Several of my trailcams have this feature but I've never used it. One advantage I could see would be being able to pinpoint where the deer are most likely to move in and out of the fields. Blessings........Pastorjim
I have used the function on my moultrie m-880. It does the job on a field edge. I don't hunt private anymore though so it doesn't make sense for me to use since I have no fields.
Jim I get the use for the field edges as it really could be useful to know which trail there using most to enter the field and which one they use to exit the field , so it could be useful in pinpointing where to set up a blind or stand. Thanks Jim DVO I understand what your saying DVO, battery life is supposed to be great, wouldn't it enable you to focus on where the deer are entering your foodplots in the bush? Sounds like this feature doesn't miss much like so many TC's do with the slower shutter speeds. Even if the TC misses the picture of the selected deer or game it'll still pick it up on the individual photo burst. Thanks JIM & DVO for your input Rocky
I would add when I used the M-880 set up like that it helped figure out when deer were in the field during daylight. The field I had it on was too big to cover the whole thing. But since the M-880 could be set up for plot watcher and sensor trigger I did get some deer walking the edge with the camera. I wouldn't buy a camera without that double feature if I had fields or plots to put it on but I don't.
I have two plotwatchers. We use them for surveillance on a few rental properties. Work great. But when they are not being used for surveillance I use them in the woods. They are great for scouting food plots / fields. I've used them in tress stands as well, open timber. Basically they help you determine where the majority of the movement is located and if there is any consistency of when the animals show up. The plotwatcher has custom settings which really aid in the scouting process- saving memory and battery life. The software that comes with the camera is extremely easy to use and it sets itself apart from a regular trail camera. The camera compresses the pictures down. So you are not able to get good detail of a deer from 50-60 yards on out. Granted that's not the purpose of the camera. The advantages I would say the plotwatcher cameras have over any trail cameras that have the time lapse capability is the compression of all the files (pictures) to the SD card and the software to view the time lapsed images. If you set up the plotwatcher just right you can get a whole months of scouting on one 32GB card and still have 100% battery life. The disadvantage is trying to get a close up view of a particular buck or animal from a long distance away. You can do it but the picture quality is not great.
Wacker Thanks for the info guy, really appreciate it . I really don't need it for telling the size of rack they have . just want to know were they go in the bush when they leave and the times would be good too! Rocky
I had two Plotwatcher's and ended up selling both of them. They work only in daytime and the pics I got in a open field were so fuzzy I couldn't make out much if it was a buck.
I love the time lapse feature for turkeys on large fields When used in conjunction with the timer feature you can pick the interval and what times of day you want the camera to trigger Most of the new cameras have both time lapse and timer features and higher MP will allow you to zoom in on critters that are father away
Thanks Pat I really only needed it for it capabilities of showing me ware the game is entering and leaving the field and the times from a distance. This way I won't be detected. Rocky
I love the camera. I put it over my food plots figure out where/when exactly the deer use the plot and then position my trail cameras on the trail accordingly. If done correctly you will get the deer on the plot watcher over the field and then on the trail camera when they enter or leave the field to see the specific deer. Without the plot watcher I was putting my trail cameras over trails that were not used as much as others and realized I was missing a ton of pictures and information.
I use the same on the browning trail camera. I put the camera on my tree stands that are on fields. That way I can get an idea where the deer are coming from and if I need to move the stand. The only down fall is if you let them run for a while it takes some time to go through all the footage. No horrible but longer than flipping through pics. I also put lithium batteries in when using this feature and can usually get almost a year out of them before changing batteries. No flash is being used so helps with battery life too.
The plot watcher has an amazing program to view the files in and it doesn't take long at all. You can scan for only when motion in detected in the pictures. It compiles it into a small video to watch at any speed you want. you can record any parts of the day you choose. I love it. But if I had already had a trail camera with a time-lapse feature I would not have spent the money. I wanted 1 for only that purchase and that's why I got the Plot watcher. There is definitely a lot of options when it comes to which camera.
I made a mistake and got the Primos version. While it worked fine, viewing became a real problem. Java issues, needed updates, Windows 10 and Java issues...just not worth the hassle. Should have gone with the plotwatcher from the start. I found it good to obtain trail use and time frames during daylight hours.
