Hunting Washington Forum
Community => Photo & Video => Topic started by: bowtechian on February 03, 2015, 02:48:03 PM
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I'm looking into picking up a trail cam soon & seems the trigger speeds & reviews are decent. Anyone have any of the browning models? Likes dislikes ?
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I got a Browning Strike Force infrared camera for X-mas and have been using it locally for testing purposes. It is easy to use, has a very fast trigger speed, and hasn't taken any pics that didn't include animals in them (just deer and a hummingbird so far but I moved it to an elk location that I'll be checking over the weekend). I find that the daytime "color" pics are not very good unless it is pretty bright outside. With the foggy, rainy weather we've had the last few weeks almost all of my daytime pics look more like black/white than color and many are blurry - not sure what to make of that. At about $130 the price seems very good for what you get, but I waited for it to go on sale for $100, which it does every once in a while.
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Band Where did you purchase yours @?
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I had browning that was one of the newer models. Paid 140 dollars or so very pleased with the night time photos. Daytime photos got quiet grainy when trying to zoom in for any reason. Recently it was stolen. My other cams that I use are moultrie 990i very pleased with this cam in all aspects. It has a digital combination lock so it is a paper weight to a thief... cost a little more but not much if buy from Amazon..I would highly recommend
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I've got great pix with my Browning Recon Force cams. Got them for about 80$ a piece last summer off eBay.
I think I might try out the Range Ops cam too.
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http://www.trailcampro.com/browningreviews.aspx here is what I was looking at. But I was inquiring from hunters real feedback
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Band Where did you purchase yours @?
Sportsman's Warehouse. They had a good sale on them in December.
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I recently picked up 4 of the strike force cameras after suggestions from multiple friends and I am extremely pleased. I have them over scratch feed sites to get an inventory of my gobblers. They are getting great photos of the turkeys and good night photos of deer. They are simple to use, which is key with me.
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I got a BT-5 Strike Force last August. I was very happy with it until about November, it started taking many videos that couldn't be viewed. I eventually called Browning tech support. They told me to reformat the card more frequently. I started doing that every time I changed cards in it and it seemed to solve the problem.
Starting in January, I put the cam out with fresh batteries and found that two weeks later, it was dead. Thinking the batteries were bad, I brought the camera home, changed batteries, and it worked fine. Put it back out in the field, it turned on fine, then 10 days later it is dead again. Brought it home, played with it a bit, but it wouldn't turn on. The next morning, after sitting on the counter all night, it worked again.
I had noticed some condensation inside the battery pack when I first opened it, and deduced (correctly or incorrectly) that it must be leaking a bit, and the moisture was causing the electronics to fail. Once inside in warm dry conditions, it dried out and worked again. Anyway, the camera has been sent in for repair, and I have no photos for January or February. I was really happy with the cam for the price of $110 at Eder's bow hunting site. Now, I'm a bit more mixed on my review.
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I'm liking my Strike Force more and more. I finally put it on a good looking trail and happened to catch a herd of elk in the middle of the afternoon that hung around grazing and bedding for over an hour, snapping a total of 74 pictures. The pics are clear and have nice color. And after snapping a total of about 200 pictures in 2 months the battery life is still at 100%! I'm using Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries. :tup:
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Nice to hear thanks for the info
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As a follow up on my BT-5 in for repair, I got the cam back in about 15 - 18 days. It now works when left out in the rain. I got some nice video shorts of pregnant blacktail does, but I now see that the camera seems to be really slow waking up before shooting.
Today, I still hunted, with binoculars, right past the cam, spending about 8 minutes in the field of view, and the thing never took a shot of me. On the way out, walking normal speed, I walked down the same road I entered on and it didn't turn on until the last moment I was still in view; all it could catch was my hand at the edge of the field of view. Same with the deer, suddenly there a three does caught on video, one directly in front of the camera, the other two 30 feet away. No shots of the deer entering the field of view, they just magically appear. I have a feeling the cam is missing a lot of action.
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I have two BTC-1s. I bought them this time last year for about $70 ea. picked up a lock box for some $25 or so. They work good enough. Picture quality kind of sucks for supposedly 6mp but the pictures were sharp and I was able to distinguish everything I wanted to. My 3mp Primos truth cam puts out better resolution.
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Yeah you'd be surprised what they miss. Cam was set up on a apple tree in my yard durring rut. I watched multiple bucks eat off it in person while cam was set up and it only took pics of one buck when there was three other ones out there. So a new more expensive cam is on my shopping list next time I go. A cam that don't work is a waste of time no doubt. So I'd suggest giving your guys cams some good tests like fishnfur was doing! Thanks for the info too guys! 👍
