Hunting Washington Forum

Community => Photo & Video => Topic started by: billythekidrock on July 18, 2010, 08:17:00 AM

Title: Do you organize or scrutinize your trailcam photos?
Post by: billythekidrock on July 18, 2010, 08:17:00 AM: Do you organize and scrutinize your photos to find out exactly what triggered a “blank” photo? Do you make note of the time of every good animal photo to help with patterning?

Right now I bring home the cards and copy the photos to a folder with the date that I checked the camera for a file name.

Over the last couple years I have lost track of the where’s & when’s of most of my trail camera images so this year I started a spreadsheet to help keep things in order and easier to look over in the future.

The spreadsheet has columns for:
“Check Date & Time” so I know when I checked it last.
“Camera” for which trail camera or brand.
“Camera Date & Time” since I often forget to reset the clock.
“Actual Date & Time” to adjust off times and dates.
“Photo” for the photo name with a hyperlink to the photo.
“Animal” for generic titles such as bear, deer, etc.
“Notes” for more detailed descriptions.

It is a work in progress and I may add or subtract columns as time goes on…or I may just give it up. Ha ha.

The other day I was scrolling through 1,500 photos and only 15 contained animals. The rest were from the grass moving around the camera. But I carefully looked at each and every one in order to make sure that I didn’t miss something.

I noticed one 3-shot burst that did not contain much grass and upon further scrutiny, I noticed the leg in left side of the photo.

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hunt101.com%2Fdata%2F500%2Fmedium%2FwebSUNP0901what.jpg&hash=0a63724d8ae65a3736a8519356c47ae7259f1236)

While it is not really a photo I want to keep, I did note the date and time in the spreadsheet to help me track deer movement through this location.

I also “attach” some photos into my GPS software by linking up the image to a waypoint. This allows me to took over the map and easily pull up photos related to the area.

Anybody have any other ideas or methods for keeping trailcam photos organized or for patterning critters?
Title: Re: Do you organize or scrutinize your trailcam photos?
Post by: markts on July 18, 2010, 08:25:26 AM: You are a busy bee Billy. Great idea but I cant find the time to organize mine.
Title: Re: Do you organize or scrutinize your trailcam photos?
Post by: billythekidrock on July 18, 2010, 08:30:30 AM: It doesn't take me long since I don't get that many photos. Usually only about 30 minutes after each check and I can do that while watching the news. :chuckle:
Title: Re: Do you organize or scrutinize your trailcam photos?
Post by: BrushChimp on July 18, 2010, 10:09:21 AM: This is an Excel chart I created after sifting through 750 photos of bull elk at one location over the course of nearly 1 month. I did it purely out of curiosity. I should go back in insert the high & low temperatures for each to add even more detail. This site had 4 lb. of table salt poured around a huge wallow up in the mountains.

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv655%2Ftrevor_swiss_guy%2FElk_Events.jpg&hash=3811fba47fc32f27dfdb2f34a6543327ce447a62)
Title: Re: Do you organize or scrutinize your trailcam photos?
Post by: billythekidrock on July 18, 2010, 10:16:07 AM: That is a great way to visualize events.
Title: Re: Do you organize or scrutinize your trailcam photos?
Post by: Todd_ID on July 18, 2010, 11:14:16 AM: That's a cool graph! It would be nice to put a curve on it that shows legal shooting times based on sunrise and sunset of each day of the month. That'd allow you to throw out events you can't do anything about: meaning the times they came in too late or too early. I'll gladly do it for you in exchange for the coordinates of the camera, because that's a ton of activity for bulls!

One thought I had on the time and date not being right because I am bad about that as well: allow the camera to take a picture of you when you walk in to check it, and then write the time down for reference when you get home to look at the pictures. That'd give you an accurate offset to build into your spreadsheet.
Title: Re: Do you organize or scrutinize your trailcam photos?
Post by: bonneylakebowman on July 18, 2010, 11:56:01 AM: I decided to give this a try with the pics from my last set and its pretty neet like the idea and gunna have to keep doing it
Title: Re: Do you organize or scrutinize your trailcam photos?
Post by: grundy53 on July 18, 2010, 12:02:12 PM: I have a journal that I keep track of the details of the pictures.
Title: Re: Do you organize or scrutinize your trailcam photos?
Post by: Skyvalhunter on July 18, 2010, 04:59:58 PM: I have an external drive where I put mine. They are stored by year and sub folder of loaction. I can then compare deer sizes from year to year and I leave time and date stamp on them.
Title: Re: Do you organize or scrutinize your trailcam photos?
Post by: billythekidrock on July 18, 2010, 07:15:37 PM: Quote from: Todd_ID on July 18, 2010, 11:14:16 AM

One thought I had on the time and date not being right because I am bad about that as well: allow the camera to take a picture of you when you walk in to check it, and then write the time down for reference when you get home to look at the pictures. That'd give you an accurate offset to build into your spreadsheet.

Yep, that is what I do. Or I get the info off of my regular camera that I always pack with me.