Well, my wife surprised me with an early Christmas gift this weekend, the Trophy Cam from Bushnell. I've been looking to pick up a second trail camera for a while now. I currently have only one, a Leaf River DC-2BU. It's pretty hard to cover the acreage I'd like to with one camera, so I've been doing research for a few months now. Here's what I was looking for- -Near $200 price point -video capable -IR flash -Quick trigger speed -easy to use I'm hoping to get a lot of use out of this little guy all year long. Next summer, I'll do a more in-depth review, but I thought I'd give you all my initial thoughts. After picking up a couple SD cards in town yesterday I was ready to set it out. First things first, this thing is TINY and I love it! You can throw it in your pocket and go. Big plus for me because I can have it on hand when I'm out scouting. If I find an area of interest, *Bam*- I'm ready to go! I was concerned with how easy it would be to set up after reading the instruction manual, but once I threw batteries and the SD card in, I found it to be a very intuitive interface and I had it set up in short order. Another reason I chose this camera was that it runs on 4 or 8 AA batteries. I wanted a camera that I could use rechargeable batteries without losing any performance (rechargeables have a lower voltage than their disposable counterparts). Since it can run on 4 AAs, I have no qualms using 8 rechargeables. We'll see long term, how they perform. The AA batteries, however, are also one of my biggest concerns with the Trophy Cam. I live along the Canadian Border in Northern Minnesota. So, I will definitely put any camera through the cold weather wringer. And the last 24hrs were a perfect introduction for this little guy. When I put the camera out yesterday afternoon it was already -1 degree outside (with 15mph winds placing the windchill in the -20's). The camera strap that comes with the camera is long, about 6' give or take. I'll most likely cut it down sometime, but for now I'll leave it. Like I said before, set up was easy, and I was back inside in no time. Last night temps dropped down to -11 and as of the time I'm writing this, have only rebounded to a balmy -6. Winds have been 15-20mph with gusts up to 30mph. This has pushed windchills to less than -30. Needless to say, these are conditions that will truly test any trail camera. I swapped out SD cards this afternoon around 1 pm, and I must say I am pleased with the results so far. I had the camera set to take 30 second videos. I got a total of 15 videos. There were no blank videos, however 4 of them were choppy (freezing throughout the video, but still capturing useful images). Here are three of the videos- http://s365.photobucket.com/albums/oo98/fotofitz/?action=view¤t=IM000007.flv http://s365.photobucket.com/albums/oo98/fotofitz/?action=view¤t=IM000011.flv http://s365.photobucket.com/albums/oo98/fotofitz/?action=view¤t=IM000013.flv The last video shows an example of the video freezing. Here's a summary of my first impressions. Pros- -Small size makes it easy to carry, yet harder for others to see in the woods -Good video quality, especially the night time IR videos -trigger time seems top notch even in the colder temps -easy to set-up and user friendly Cons- -freezing video (though, I'm happy that it took any videos at these temps) -somewhat confusing manual, you're honestly better off figuring it out on your own -keeping my fingers crossed with the cold weather performance of the AA batteries All and all I'm a happy camper, but time will tell how the Trophy Cam holds up to the winters of Ely, MN. If you are looking for a camera in the $200 range, I'd recommend this one. Bushnell has seemingly packed a ton of features into a pocket sized little package.
Thanks for the review. I am impressed with the crispness of the night-time video. Will look forward to further reviews. Blessings.....Pastorjim
Thanks for the write up Fitz. Looking forward to seeing some more pics from this camera and make sure to give us a review on the battery life when you've had it for a while. I just bought a new game cam a few days ago. I had it narrowed down to this cam and a Cuddeback Capture. I ended up going with the Capture.
thanks for sharing. i like the duration of the night time videos. my moultrie I40 only takes a 5 second video at night. may have to look into the trophy cam for my next trail camera
Funny thing happened. When I copied the videos to my hard drive, the choppy one somehow fixed themselves:D. So, I think it was the SD card being cold or something, but the freezing video is a non-issue for now! Another reason I went with the Trophy Cam! You can adjust the video length from 1 to 60 seconds in one second intervals. Plus there are two video resolution settings.
