For you food plotters or field watchers

[Doc]

Just saw a different kind of trail camera in the Bass-Pro catalog. It's called the "Primos Deer positioning  System" (Page 134 of their archery catalog).

You set it up watching your food plot or some other kind of field. When daylight comes it starts snapping pictures every 5 - 10 seconds throughout the day. Yeah, that's a lot of pictures, but they have software that allows you to review the whole day in 3 minutes. What good is it? ..... Well it tells you where the deer are coming out and when and how long they are staying there. Once you determine a pattern, you just slide a stand in there and wait for them to show up.

Yeah I know, it seems a bit like cheating  ;D . Anybody going to be trying one of these things out? It's only $119.99. Pretty cheap by trai-cam standards.

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Did they give any indication what you need for batteries and how long they last?....sounds like you might have to build a mini nuke to power something like that.

[Doc]

Did they give any indication what you need for batteries and how long they last?....sounds like you might have to build a mini nuke to power something like that.

No, they didn't mention anything about that. I'll bet it does chew up batteries.

[burmjohn]

Whats neat about that is you get pics of all kinds of action the motion sensor ones fail to pickup, anything beyond like 30 or 40 yards doesnt trigger with either cam we have.

[erussell]

Might as well tie one up in the back yrd and shoot it out the window or go to a high fence area to hunt. To each his own I guess.

[burmjohn]

Might as well tie one up in the back yrd and shoot it out the window or go to a high fence area to hunt. To each his own I guess.

Yeah, that's good analogy. Better not scout, use scents, hunt near deer trails, or do anything to prep for the deer season.

[erussell]

I usually don't anymore I just hit them with the car.

[Doc]

It sure does raise a question about how much technology is too much. Every year they come up with more stuff to take the "hands-on" parts of hunting out of the equation. If only they could couple all this up with set-guns they might be able to reduce deer hunting down to simple set-up and collect. Aren't we all looking forward to that day? ;D

[Cabin Fever]

The 2011 Bushnell Trophy Cams have something they call Time Lapse software using Scouting Assistant. You can program the cam to take a pic of the area at certain intervals in between times that you set. (ie. every 2 min from 7am-9am)

[WNYBuckHunter]

There are actually quite a few cams out there with that feature. One of the better dedicated brands is Plot Watcher. I dont buy into the idea that you can use one of these to pattern the deer without fail, deer arent robots and always seem to do unexpected things.

[Geno C]

i have seen that cam before

[wdswtr]

I read a bit about that new food plot camera.  It take something like 3600 pictures a day with a 3 minute review time how the heck are you suppose to see whats in the pictures in 3 minutes lol.  Thats 20 pictures a second.  I thought about getting one just for fun watching the foodplots.  I dont hunt over my plots at all.  Never have either.  Something about it just doesnt sit well with me. 

[Doc]

I read a bit about that new food plot camera.  It take something like 3600 pictures a day with a 3 minute review time how the heck are you suppose to see whats in the pictures in 3 minutes lol.  Thats 20 pictures a second.  I thought about getting one just for fun watching the foodplots.  I dont hunt over my plots at all.  Never have either.  Something about it just doesnt sit well with me.

I'm just guessing here, but perhaps since the deer are out there for awhile, you might be able to pick up their presence as the pictures go by and then frame by frame go back to the entry frame. I'm picturing something like a movie where if something is added to the picture, you generally can see the change. Like I say that's just a guess. It would be interesting to hear from someone who has used one of these things to explain that point.

[G-Man]

I do this with out needing 3000 pics..just keep tabs on where the deer is positiond in the field, i then move the camera in the direction it seems to have come from ..find the entrance trail,reset the camera, a quick scouting job, maybe put the cam back up the trail futher to see if you can get to a staging area where you get good daylight pics and set a stand. I do have a great series of 25 pics at 30 sec intervals of deer eating apples. if you click thru them fast enough it looks like one of the old flip movies you'ld draw in the corner of a notebook. apples just keep dissapearing!!

[growalot]

personally I think they are great....no need to trip the IR and excellent way to catch those nasty trespassers...these cams have a wider angled lens and long shot range and if you have lane ways or logging roads..... these types cross..... all you need to do is set it up at the head of such an area and get a good long shot on it

[Doc]

But there still is the question of battery life. Isn't that a concern for a camera that is taking pictures all day?

[wdswtr]

Yeah a big question.  I googled the crap out of it and heres a couple things I found,  apparently they are having sd memory card problems with the camera which seem to cause the camera to lockup or not reconize the format once it has been removed and a few said they could not turn the camera off after they inserted the memory card.  I can attest I had this similar problem with one of my cameras and it turned out that it would only except an sdhc memeory card and the readear on my laptop could only read sd memory cards and it casue all sorts or quircky problems until I bought an accesory for my laptop to plug the sdhc cards into.  The other thing is I found zero and I mean zero mention of battery life anywhere.  However on Primos Q&A on the camera there is one question as to why the battery life is so low and another of what type of battery to use.  Primos basically said the short battery life was probably caused from the amount of daylight in particular areas of the country so the camera was running for longer periods of time.  On the type of battery they recomend using only alkaline batteries and not rechargable or lithiums.  One thing I missed is that the camera only functions during the daylight.  And it has a range of 200 yards. 

[Cabin Fever]

But there still is the question of battery life. Isn't that a concern for a camera that is taking pictures all day?

If I had my Bushnell TC setup to watch my plots, I could just program it to take say 1 pic every 5min, for the first 2hrs of daylight and the last 2hrs before dark. With that setup, that's only 48 pics/day. With regular Duracells, I get 4000+ pics before they die.

[Doc]

But there still is the question of battery life. Isn't that a concern for a camera that is taking pictures all day?

If I had my Bushnell TC setup to watch my plots, I could just program it to take say 1 pic every 5min, for the first 2hrs of daylight and the last 2hrs before dark. With that setup, that's only 48 pics/day. With regular Duracells, I get 4000+ pics before they die.

Given how much ground deer cover in 5 minutes, can that arrangement ensure that you will catch the exact point where the deer come into the field? That first picture of them, they may already be in the middle of the plot.

I like the idea that you can choose only a certain number of hours to be photographing. I think that generally there is not much deer activity in fields to photograph during the middle bunch of hours.

[thetrigger22]

I just read in "Deer and Deer Hunting" that the plot watcher runs 4 months on 8AA batteries.

[wdswtr]

3600 pictures a day on 8 AA alkaline batteries?  That would be almost 440,000 pictures.  LMAO either that article was blowing smoke up someones ass or Primos should be into the battery operated vehicle business.  Now I didnt read that article but I am willing to bet you that it stated the standard power source of being 8 AA right.  Did it say that they had the 6 volt power pack plugged into it for those 4 months I bet not huh?  Just another way to market something with leaving out the details lol.

[cboy18]

That's how fast technology is evolving.  They would be good for the yard. 

[Cabin Fever]

But there still is the question of battery life. Isn't that a concern for a camera that is taking pictures all day?

If I had my Bushnell TC setup to watch my plots, I could just program it to take say 1 pic every 5min, for the first 2hrs of daylight and the last 2hrs before dark. With that setup, that's only 48 pics/day. With regular Duracells, I get 4000+ pics before they die.

Given how much ground deer cover in 5 minutes, can that arrangement ensure that you will catch the exact point where the deer come into the field? That first picture of them, they may already be in the middle of the plot.

I like the idea that you can choose only a certain number of hours to be photographing. I think that generally there is not much deer activity in fields to photograph during the middle bunch of hours.

5 min was an "example" for you to see "what is in the plot". Use every 1 min or less if you want to pin-point where they are entering or exiting! My point is you have the freedom to program if for whatever you want. If someone is concerned about battery life so much, then don't program it to take so many pics!

[skyhunter]

As "WNYBuckHunter" said these time lapse plot watchuing cams have been around a few years.

The software converts the still pics to a video format but as also mentioned the early models were battery eaters and only provide a few days worth of action. I believe that has beeen improved on a bit in the latest models.

Also some cam models like the Bushnell can be used in either regular picture mode or "plot watching" time lapse mode. Unfortunately some of these units once set to time lapse mode stay there 24/7 and it continues to fire at night giving you nothing but black images since it wouldn't make sense to fire a flash in this mode.

Now if  a unit could be programed do the time lapse mode by day and then switch over to regular trail cam pics by night, then that would be getting it right. Someone may have that feature but I believe the Bushnell cam doesn't.

[Doc]

One big difference is that the primos camera only costs $119 and the Bushnell is around $200. Also there is some kind of PC software that comes with the Primos. Not sure exactly what it does, but may have something to do with making the view-back easier.