I have my own test I run on my cams before they go into the field,but I would like to here from you guys here on the form about your cams and detection range of your cams from warm temps to cold lets say 80's down to 20's or below if you have that low of temps in your area. My thoughts bring me to what I want my cams, Alot more distance in field settings maybe a lens that will magnify the pic like 1x or 2x . on that note i put all my cams on a board last year and did some walk bye test at set ranges and then looked at the pics,well some looked like I was further away on different cams at the same distance that i had marked off in my yard. I did the test to see how well each cam triggered and how far away it would trigger so at first I did daylight and night time walk byes and learned alot about my own cams.. mostly about what they dont or wont do so I can set them up in the woods the best for each cam that gets the best results. This is not about brand of cam bashing or Holding up a banner for (your) fav cam just honest info from us bowhunting trailcam users. Side note not all cams are the same even if it's the same model for example: Of one cam I have five of the same make year and model,you can put new batterys and new sd cards set the up on the walk bye board with the same settings and they all have there own personality if that makes since... so i can see if someone has different experience with the same cam with different results.I also took two brand new out of the box cams same brand make and model set them up with new batterys,new sd cards and formatted the cards in the cams and ran a 3 day test one of the cams took like 188 pics and the other 123 so maybe a sensor problem or just my luck as it goes....I have sent cams back in forth to various manufactures for repair or marry go round only to get something worse or different problem all together sometimes so it always good to choose your battles So how far away will your cam trigger on a deer size animal? I have some pics from a cheapo cam that took pics of a combine working hard in are corn field so either the heat from the engine or size of the object moving makes a difference. This maybe a fluke or wind and I look at these pics from time to time and wonder. call it wish list or off season rambling. Thanks for reading this.
In detection range, one has to do apple to apple comparison, or the numbers can be very misleading. For hunting, both the size of the animal and the environment temperatue matters. As far as detection is concerned, at least three factors affect detection range: 1. Object size; 2. Object temperature; 3. Environment temperature. In the truck detection pictures above, First of all, the truck size is at least 16x bigger than a deer, that leads to at least 4x longer detection. Secondly, the temperature of waste gas is at least 400 F, and the egine at least 1,000 F, leads to another 6x to 10x longer detection. That's why it is no strange that all game cameras can detect cars at 30 yard or longer. When it comes for deer detection, many tests are based on human walking. A side to side comparison requires putting two cameras side to side at the same time, with the same person walking. If you test a camera with a child walking or with an oversized man walking, you may have 50% difference. The true tests are in the field. You put two cameras in the field side by side, set the same time intervals, then come back 1 month later, you count the picture numbers. The numbers tell you the truth. And then you know which brand is lying or misleading.
Detection range or detection zone is a subject that you don't hear companies talk about in their ads. It is, however, in my opinion the first thing we should consider when buying a camera. The detection zone is the area the sensor "sees." If it can't "see" an object, it can't take a pic no matter how fast it is. That's one reason I always reference this great testing data that trailcampro has on their site. As you can see when you look at the tests, you will see that Reconyx has by far the largest detection area. This along with it's hyper fast speed is the reason they are such reliable units. Bushnell also has a great detection zone but the angle of detection for the sensor is wider than the picture taking zone of the camera. Therefore you get empty pics with the animal just outside of the view of the camera. I get that alot with my Bushnell, but it's still a great unit. Take a look at this link, I think you will find it most helpful when choosing a camera. http://www.trailcampro.com/detectionzonetest.aspx Blessings........Pastorjim
The following picture shows the comparisons of detection zone maps of a Long Range detector and a normal detector: Any user that has a Reconyx camera or Bushnell camera, can simply do a walking testing, so to find out the detection zone map of the camera. As I mentioned, walking by the same person at the same time.
