How do you guys go about organizing trail cam pics. Do you pick out certain targets and only file them? Do you try and identify every deer and group them accordingly, go off of picture times or just say the hell with it and delete them once your done viewing them? I am asking because I want to be more organized with my photo collection going through the summer and into the fall but just don't know how to go about doing it. I have never really filed them any certain way. Just stuck all the pictures from a certain check day into a folder and called it good. I already know I need to check my cameras more often. This last set I went 8 weeks on and had just over 6000 pics to sort through. Way too overwhelming for me to do a good job of sorting. I'm thinking I need to go either every week or every 2 at the most. But anyway what kind of systems do you guys use to keep things straight?
Personally I never check a camera unless its been out more than two weeks, im not trying to educate them anymore than I already am. Laying scent and making yourself a regular is a sure way for them to pattern you. As far as organizing my photos.... I go through and delete ALL the doe pics to cut down on the number of BS photos. I start each year off with a new folder at each farm. SO when I check a cam i just put that months photos in the folder for that farm and thats how I keep tract of what moving and living on farms at certain times. Most of these farm I know when to hunt and when not to though so trail cams just let me know what deer are still around and which have moved off for awhile. The most important thing I like to do is pattern what wind direction a buck comes into the camera once hes shed his velvet, that can tell you alot about where hes living and where you can setup on him to try and get a day time kill.
Here's how I organize them: -First, in folders by species. (Deer, Wolf, Moose, etc) -then I name the files by time and date. In the case of deer I end it B if it's a buck. Here's and example. Year-Month-Day Time-sequencial if multiple images were taken that minute Buck indicator 11-10-21 1503-2 B 12-02-18 0015 The first would be from Oct 21st 2011 , and was the second photo from 3:03 PM, it was a buck The second was from Feb 18, 2012 at 12:15 AM Doing it this was lists all my photos in the order they were taken. If I have a particular buck, I'll make a folder for him and copy all his photos into it with the same code so they are again in chronological order. The "B" makes it easier to scan my folders to find bucks. I keep most buck photos but have been thinning out the doe photos I keep. In the fall I'll keep more of them, just to help me pattern the deer better, but after the season I'll go through and delete a buch, keeping the 'pretty' or unique ones. Hope this helps
Do you guys keep every photo of a given buck. For example on this last set I had the same buck on the camera for over an hour and he accounted for around 100 pictures in this time period none of them being more than 3-5 minutes apart. Do you keep all of them or just keep the first couple and last couple and make a note that he was there for that whole period?
I typically thin it down. I save a few good ones that gives me the information that I need, and cull the rest.
I organize very similiar to Rutin, but I do NOT remove the doe pics on 2 pieces of property 'cause our buck-doe ratio is pretty close to 1-1 here in the WI CWD zone. I really want to know where the does are hanging out and moving to prepare for the pre-rut, chasing and rut to hopefully locate a horny buck. Similiar to Rutin, each property has folder, but within each folder I have a buck and doe folder. I do thin the pics down to a manageable level 'cause you will have multiple pics of the same deer during some of their visits past your trail cam. Fitz, I like your method of organizing.....I might have to add that this year when I put my cameras out. I typically do not put out my cameras until mid-July and remove some of them the first week of the season while others I will keep out until around early November. The property that I remove the cameras the first week of the season is a public access private property that starts getting a lot of foot traffic (possible thieves!!) around mid-October.
