Free: Contests & Raffles.
I'd rather have 1 high quality cam than 10 "under a hundred" cams. I've probably purchased 30 cams over the last 5 years and only 8 still work. All of those were over $150. Nothing worse than putting in all the time and effort to place them only to come back in a month or two to find a dud. Don't go cheap! For what it's worth, I do leave mine out all year on the wetside.
I will never by cams over a $100. I have cams that still work flawlessly that are 4 years old. I had some expensive cams years ago and watch them crap out after a year or 2 or these so called great cams not function properly in temps 25 and under. Some of my best cams are $50
I have had great success with wildgame innovations cams they to work better in extreme cold.... this is what started my suspicion of cams working in cold temps.
5, Average use; once a month change out. Heavy use(salt) and lots of critters; every 2 weeks for change out of batts and card. 32g card will hold aprox 1200 videos of 20 seconds, at that point batteries will be dead, I use Kirkland batts.
I tested 3 cams on the same tree once all pointed in same direction, delay etc. It was staggering what cams were missing in single digit to teen's, but if you had just hung one cam and checked it after a week you woulda thought all was good there were pics every day. Only 1 cam of the 3 took a pic of a bear, some missed certain bucks and one took far more than the others. I have had great success with wildgame innovations cams they to work better in extreme cold. I had a bushnell trophy cam set up and had a doe and 2 fawns come in and eat for about 30 min standing 5-15' from the cam. I got out of stand that night and checked the cam 0 pics of those deer, but pics of me walking up to it this is what started my suspicion of cams working in cold temps. I also had a high end moultrie set up on a deer bait that I could see from about 300 yards away and glassed a bear laying right in front of the cam eating. When the bear moved off I went in to check cam and had 1 bad pic was it! bear had been there 30 min or so and this was 80 deg weather and once again if that cam sat there for a week or more and you had just checked it all woulda seemed fine. Cams miss alot of stuff I have come to notice.