Trail camera only catching me?

[Tracker0721]

Think my camera hates me. I’ve had it going since September in different spots, newest spot is my most active, few hundred pictures every couple days. But my last 2 checks there’s been nothing. There’s pictures of me leaving- I always watch it and make sure I see it take a picture, and then pictures of me coming to get it. Also we got fresh snow. There’s thousands of tracks, pee, poop, a scraped tree, and the food block is half gone in 4 days! But no pictures besides me leaving and coming back. So I used my card recovery thing which brings back deleted photos from the SD card and it found 3,000 pictures on my SD card going back to 2015 but not none between when I set it or picked it up!

Anyone else ever experience this? It’s even been warmer the last few days then it was when I was getting a hundred+ a night too.

[birdshooter1189]

What model camera?

I had a similar situation with my Stealthcam QS-14.  I mounted it to a fence about 10 feet from where a bear was repeatedly climbing over the fence into my chicken pen. 

One day I went out and the fence was smashed down so I knew the bear had come through.  I checked the camera and......NOTHING.  I should have had photos of the bear both coming and leaving.

In other situations and sets I have gotten photos of rabbits, racoons, and birds at 10-20 feet distance with the same camera.

I bought several of these cameras on sale for about $35 each.  I attribute the occasional "misses" as the result of buying cheap cameras.  Overall I have been very happy with these and just bought 4 more of the same model.  But I have had a couple times where I didn't get photos when I knew I should have.

[Tracker0721]

It’s a moultrie m-880. It was like $150 in 2015 when I bought it. Only one other time have I had this happen and when I recovered the deleted photos there were all my pictures and some dude coming in and deleting them. But now it’s not catching them. By the tracks I’d say there were a couple dozen deer in there.

[birdshooter1189]

That does seem odd.  I've had thick fog/rain/snow do strange things to my cameras occasionally.  Or branch or leaves get in the way and block the motion sensor.  I've had a couple older cheaper cameras glitch out and/or shut off.  Doesn't sound like your problem would be from these causes though.

Maybe change your camera angle and see if a different angle or height makes it detect motion better.

[Birdguy]

As a newer camera does it have a sensitivity setting? I have used Moultrie cams for many years and have not had this issue. Seems a bit odd. Are the pics of you at the same distance the tracks? Angle would be the only thing I can think of you are taller than a deer and thus maybe pointed to high?

Hope you get it figured out cause we all like pics on our cams!! Good luck 

[huntnnw]

I figured this out about 10 years ago. And it’s a huge issue with several brands that work great in warmer months , but as temps hit 30’s and below they have a hard time triggering on deer. I believe it’s the heat emitted from people is why they seem to work fine , but deer are so insulated that they don’t recognize them all the time .First time I was in a stand with 3 does in front of the cam for 30 min these deer were a mere few feet away. Before I left I checked it the only pics were me walking away and me checking it! This prompted me to start testing cams I hung 3 different models all on same trigger time and pics. It was pretty alarming what cams were not getting in a week. All 3 cams if they were hung solo and you checked them after a week you would think they worked perfect as they all had pics, but 1 cam had 200 more pics and a bear a buck that the 2 others never captured. I have a cam at the house right now that’s new and it’s not triggering on deer all the time . I have the luxury of watching the deer in front of it. I write down the time I see deer and when I check the cam I see if it took a pic.

[Bango skank]

All 3 cams if they were hung solo and you checked them after a week you would think they worked perfect as they all had pics, but 1 cam had 200 more pics and a bear a buck that the 2 others never captured.

This is why it drives me crazy when people recommend the cheap crap cameras, they always say "i bought these cheap such and such for $40 each and they take great pics."  Yeah, thats great that the pics look nice, but that doesnt make it a good camera.  Its likely missing a lot of stuff.  From just flat out failure to detect, poor detection range, poor trigger recovery time etc.  People just dont think about this, and ive tried to explain it, but people ignore it.  I think they ignore it because they WANT to think their cheap crap is good.  Basically burying their head in the sand that theyre wasting money by buying a garbage product.  Regardless of what the pics look like, a camera isnt really doing you any good at all if its missing animals.  Its giving you faulty intel at that point.  Ive done this with numerous models and brands, hanging them side by side to compare.  Everybody loves the browning cams for example, and maybe the latest generations are better, but i wouldnt know because i wont buy them.  When they first started making cams reviews were great and prices were good so i bought a bunch.  Spec ops, strike force, range ops, dark force.  I thought they were good cams too until i hung some side by side with my bushnells.  In all temperature ranges the brownings would pretty regularly miss animals, well within their advertised detection range, that the bushnells picked up.  Im talking animals as big as elk and moose.  So i got rid of all my browning cams and havent tried any of the newer models.  Right now i have the new fancy stealth cam ds4k mounted next to a bushnell aggressor.  The stealth cam pics up bears, lions and deer just fine, but it regularly misses on small animals like skunks and bobcats.  Thats not such a big deal to me, but the brownings missing elk and moose? Come on now, thats just not a quality product.

[HillHound]

I have gone rounds with several different brands too. Tried some cheaper ones from Blaze and Campark and have ok results. I know they miss stuff when there are fresh tracks but no pics. . Had a couple stealth cams they worked well but one completely quit this year and the other seems to be very picky about the brand of sd card now. If you were going to go buy five or 10 more Bango would you say you would go with the bushnell or the stealth cams? Any specific model? It doesn’t seem like any of them are perfect but with the amount you have out And the tests you’ve done I would feel like you have a pretty good opinion.

[Bango skank]

I know a lot of people bad mouth them, and maybe theres goid reason with older or cheaper models, but about a year ago i started testing out spypoint force 10 and force 11-d.  Also recently testing out the force dark.  I think theyre great cams, and they would be my recommendation.  I was picking up the force 11-d for about $90 but im not seeing them anywhere at that price any more.  But the force dark seems to (so far) be on par with the 11-d, but with a better case design, and supposedly something like a 36 month battety life, but time will tell on that one.  Force dark can be had on amazon for $110, and trailcampro has them on sale right now for that price.  And TCP gives a 2 year warranty, so id buy from them over amazon when the price is the same.
 Havent had time yet to tell about durability / life expectancy, but the performance of the cameras so far has been fantastic.  The picture quality isnt top notch, and depends a lot on lighting, but thats a secondary concern for me.  First and foremost i want to know what walked in front of the camera, and they dont miss a beat.  And their detection range is great.  I hung a couple up to test that and man i have gotten sd cards full of pics of animals far enough away that they look tiny.  And if you set the delay to "instant" (do not do that over salt or any kind of feed) it takes crazy rapid fire pictures, even from long distances.  Battery life on them is real good too.  Time will tell about their life expectancy though.  The one hiccup ive had with one so far was a force 10 that at the end of september, right when it started snowing, the date jumped back about 3 months to july or something.  Pretty weird.  I reset it last time i was there.  Now i have pics of my buck in the snow lip curling and chasing does in "september"

[huntnnw]

Some of my best performing cold weather cams are $50 wild game innovations . My buddy has around 30-40 of them . Always seem to work when cold

[HillHound]

Thanks bango. I am going to order some and see what I am missing with the other ones. I had one of my cameras do the same thing but changed to July. I thought someone might have been messing with me but it’s on private property and didn’t see any sign of anyone.

[Buckhunter24]

I think wildgame innovations is the route Im going on my next cameras. Ive got several of the tascos out, they are without a doubt missing animals as well. The price is so low they I gave them a try, I wouldnt recommend them to anyone at this point though. Would love to try one of the wireless cell cameras but the price has me hesitant.

[buggy]

I've had issues with lenses fogging up/obscuring the sensor. I'd get a series of pics that got more blury/white. Then about a 10-12 hour period with no pics. Then a series of pics that got clearer. I wipe on some anti fog solution before hanging cams now.

[Tracker0721]

Maybe it is the fog. My camera has pictures down to 0 degrees no problem and I’ve had it for 4 years. The area it’s in has been covered in constant fog so maybe that’s it. I pulled the camera and it works fine set watching our dogs. Just a first for me! I might check out these other cameras!

[OutHouse]

My brother had a similar problem with a Moultray. We never figured it out and then a bear chomped it.

[Doublelunger]

I had a bunch of m-80's 7-8 years ago and they were bomber. Picked up a couple of the m-880's (the equivalent model) a few years later and they were junk. Detection sucked. Stuff had to be within like 10-15 to trigger it.

[huntnnw]

Maybe it is the fog. My camera has pictures down to 0 degrees no problem and I’ve had it for 4 years. The area it’s in has been covered in constant fog so maybe that’s it. I pulled the camera and it works fine set watching our dogs. Just a first for me! I might check out these other cameras!

how would you know unless you are sitting in front of it seeing whats there and comparing. You have nothing to compare it too. Like I said a above all my cams seem to work fine if you were to hang them solo and check them after a week. I would have pics all week long like everything was all good, but it wasnt all good they were missing tons of pics. Hell at my house I had a cam that I was suspect wasnt working right, I had 117 pics one night and I thought it was low. I hung a stealth cam and got 707! Now that stealth cam just last night took 49 pics, thats not correct as 70lbs of feed were gone! and first pics were at 3am! I have deer at house every night at 4:30.

One of the worst cold cams I ever had was a new Bushnell trophy cam and the cam I spent the most money on. I will never spend over $70 on cam a piece of electrical equipment that sits outside, rain,snow,high humidity and heat and expect anything to work more than a few years.

Of all the cams the WGI have been the best and hard to beat on price and I dont cry when a bear eats one,someone steals one or one just craps out. No way Id be spending $200 on a cam.

[444Marlin]

Some motion sensors have a difficult time picking up slow motions...like feeding deer.  And the trigger speeds can be horribly slow to pick up what does walk in front of it.

After hearing how many folks get their cams stolen, I have a difficult time spending a ton of cash on a quality cam that will likely be discovered and stolen.  It hasn't happened to me yet, but I know it will.  And until then, I am okay having low cost and questionable quality out there.