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favorite trail cam's

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bassinbrian

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With so many cameras on the market, which in the affordable price range is best, say up to $150.oo and why. Then the more expensive cams and why. I really like the primos cams but I am also interested to hear what most hunters choose from cheap to top dollar, just curious. :confused:
 
I got the Primos Truth Cam 35 from wallyworld for $79.99. I've never owned a cam before. It takes good pics as far as I'm concerned. I asked about it on here and others appeared to like them as well. Same cam at bass pro for $99.99.
 
I like my 2 Primos 35's. The pics aren't as good as my Moultrie but the battery life is awesome. They have been out since the end of June and still have 70% battery life. They work well over mineral sites, corn, and scrapes.
 
I have had a couple of Cuddebacks, a Wildgame Innovations, and 3 Primos ones.

The Cuddebacks were the most expensive of the ones I've had...and yet were the worse. Battery life was okay, except for when it was real cold out and then they ate batteries. Worse yet...both of mine went bad just a touch over a year of owning them. The sensor went bad in the first one and the 2nd one just quit working.

The WildGame Innovation was the cheapest one but it at least lasted about 4 years. It had a very slow trigger speed but at least it worked. It wasn't good for putting out on a trail in attempts to capture pictures of moving deer but if you put it out over a mineral lick or corn where the deer stayed in front of it, you got decent pics.

The Primos ones are by far my favorite. I have the non Ultra models. The Ultra models take AA batteries and suppose to have longer battery life than their D size battery counterparts. I can't speak for those but I can for the D cell models. I have the Model 46 and Blackout model and just recently bought a closeout Model 35 for real good price.

The 35 is the most simple camera I've ever had to setup...I mean SIMPLE. I've had it out for a week now and checked my card this morning. It takes just as good of pics as the others...just the sensor don't pick up as far as the others. It's my favorite model though! I came just a hair in buying another one and probably will down the road. For the money it's my favorite one to date...BUT I've not had it out long so I don't know if it will stand the test of life in the field.

The Blackout one that I have seems to get confused in low light...it wants to bounce between IR mode and color mode....so it will take one pic that is in IR mode (b&w) then have a blank pic that follows it where it tried to take one in regular mode. The aiming sensor on it don't work...or is very weak and I can't see it from afar off. I have to bring my digital camera with me when I set it up to be sure I have it positioned right and that it's picking me up when I walk by. Other wise at night, it takes really good pics and during the day it takes really good pics. It's just the transition period that it will put lots of blank pics on there. I've had it a year and it's still going strong and not hard on batteries. I just had to replace my first set of batteries just the week prior to opening day and upon checking cards this morning, it still had battery life in the 90s and it's been out this whole time.

The 46 is the first one that I got to replace the Cuddebacks. I've had it about 2 yrs I guess. It has done very well out in the field. The only thing about it seems to be that it has an audible "click" sound when it takes a picture. It's not loud but can be heard from several yards away when it takes a picture. The IR led's also glow a bright orange color when its dark...looks like a glass top stove eye coming on. I think the newer ones have addressed this a bit. I didn't notice the 35 doing it but I've not walked up on it in the dark yet. Of course that's the reason I got the Blackout anyway.
 
I like a few features on all my cams and dislike a few features on all my cams. No one cam has turned out to be the perfect cam.

I like the reliability of my old Reconyx RC60 cams. Extremely expensive, but they work right every time, and have for many years. No flukes or flaws. The downside to the RC60 is unit size (fairly large), being powered by 6 C-cells that need replacing about every 45 days, not the greatest picture quality, and not the greatest night-time illumination distances. But on a scrape or trail, they work fantastic. Ultra-fast trigger and every setting is customizable, even down to the time delay between burst-mode pictures.

I love my old HCO SG550. Great little cam that runs forever on 8 lithium AAs. However, picture quality and illumination distances arn't great (pictures are fuzzy). Plus it is a red-glow cam. But they just keep running and running year after year. However, using the little plug in hand-controller can be a pain.

For a red-glow cam, it's hard to beat some of the Bushnell cams. I love the ones I have. Excellent picture quality, good night illumination, easy set-up, and so far, no problems with them at all. And they will run for a year or more on 8 lithium AAs.

I liked the picture quality (night and day) of the Uway NT50Bs. Love the very high number of burst-mode pictures it will take (up to 9). I liked having a good viewer in the hand-controller. But the plug-ins for the hand-controller and units have had problems. I also had problems with the NT50B being too sensitive. Hang one on a smaller tree and it will trigger with even the slightest breeze moving the tree. I've also experienced a high failure rate with these cameras, and none of them have lasted more than 18 months.

So far, I am seriously thrilled with the new Uway VH200B cams. I have several of them, and they seem to be a good compromise on everything. They are not overly sensitive, have a narrower field of sensitivity (so deer outside the picture frame can't trigger the camera--a real problem with many makes of camera), take excellent day pictures, good night pictures (if a tad grainy), and has quite good illumination distances at night. When pointing these cams into openings like food plots, I plug in a black-flash flash extender, and those things REALLY light up the night. With a flash extender, I can see antler characteristics on bucks at 100+ feet at night (amazing for a black-flash). The only downsides I've found so far is a fairly small internal viewer (hard to see detail), an inability to "look through" the camera lens to see if the camera is line up correctly, and a maximum burst mode picture series of only 3 per trigger. I guess you could also say having to run them with 12 lithium AAs is also a downside, but they will probably last more than a year with those batteries. But so far, these cams have performed flawlessly, and they are my new "favorite" cam, especially with a flash extender attached.

I've also been testing the new Uway U250B, a smaller retail version of the VH series. However, I am not as pleased with this unit. Picture quality is poor, illumination distances are poor, motion blur is extreme, and the internal viewer is so small as to be virtually unviewable.
 
Primos 35 hard to beat...I have two 35's, a 46, two Spy points nd a moultrie I60.. Personally I think after about 2 yrs things are goind to start going wrong..Moultrie has excellent customer service and Primos is replacing my 46 as we speak...their customer service seems to be excellent also.
 

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