Night vision garden wild-life cameras

[Beggarall]

Anyone got one? I was hoping to spy out what was crawling round my house at night. Would like auto video shooting and a decent battery life - and, of course, a reasonable image quality. Lots on Amazon like Apeman but I have no idea what works well - so advice appreciated. Thanks

[Vintage Racer]

I use a few 'APEMAN H55' cameras and they are very good value for money......HOWEVER, do not expect great image quality, from ANY 'Trail-cam'!

I use mine for staking out potential wildlife sites and then returning with my hide and 'pro' gear, to get the decent shots.

You will be surprised, by what you find captured on your camera!

[Megaflow]

Vintage Racer said:

I use a few 'APEMAN H55' cameras and they are very good value for money......HOWEVER, do not expect great image quality, from ANY 'Trail-cam'!

I use mine for staking out potential wildlife sites and then returning with my hide and 'pro' gear, to get the decent shots.

You will be surprised, by what you find captured on your camera!

When you say don’t expect great image quality, what sort of level of quality are we talking about. I’d like something to see the wild life in my back garden, something comes in and lays cable on the lawn, providing I can’t identify I am not bothered. I am not looking for images that can be used for display, either online or in print.

[Vintage Racer]

Quality will be fine for identifying things, but many people expect 'high-definition' images from trail-cams, which is not realistic.

Here is a blog that I wrote a while ago about using trail-cams, which you might find useful: https://imageweaver.blogspot.com/2020/01/why-trail...

Edited by Vintage Racer on Friday 20th November 13:46

[Harpoon]

I've got a 2017 Browning Spec Ops Extreme camera from https://shop.naturespy.org/camera-trap-selection/ They were really helpful when I was looking for a camera.

This is a recent night video shot of a fox breaking into my hedgehog feed house

https://imgur.com/NN6UBDr

One limit of a number of the Browning cameras is night videos are limited to a maximum of 20 seconds but it will cycle and record again (batteries allowing etc).

[Megaflow]

Vintage Racer said:

Quality will be fine for identifying things, but many people expect 'high-definition' images from trail-cams, which is not realistic.

Here is a blog that I wrote a while ago about using trail-cams, which you might find useful: https://imageweaver.blogspot.com/2020/01/why-trail...

Edited by Vintage Racer on Friday 20th November 13:46

Great information, thanks,

[Nimby]

Do any of the current trail cameras acknowledge the existence of rechargeable batteries?

I have a couple of Bushnells which are a few years old now. They take 8 AA batteries which gets expensive if you use 1.5v alkalines, and they aren't happy with 1.2v NiMH rechargeables.

I'm tempted to try bodging one to take 18650 Li-Ion's and a voltage converter.

[Beggarall]

Update. I bought an Apeman and have been quite pleased with the results. Using rechargeable AA batteries which last at least 3 days outside. Images at night are a bit blurred and grainy but the short videos are fun to watch. Day time images are pretty good. So far have captured a few deer, a squirrel and next door's cat!! No leopards or tigers!! Now going to resite the camera to se if I can discover where the mice are getting in. Lots of traps laid and lots of scratchings! Here's a sample picture but having difficulty with the Thumbsnap link this morning!

[blueg33]

Bought a wifi one for £50 new on ebay last week. It took these pics and better vids of the hedgehogs in our garden








Its called CamPark wifi. Takes 8 AA batteries that have lasted for 3 nights and 3 days of videoing (i used it for birds in the day so it was taking alot of pics)