Breaking new ground

[Doc]

There you go ....... I've finally arrived into the new millenium. I placed my first internet product order ...... lol. I'm a bit slow about trusting some of these things, and I figured today was the day.

I did my research, and finally decided on the Moultrie L-50 as the "white flash" trail cam that had a good chance of supplying adequate quality for an affordable (for me) price. I went to hayneedle.com and got it for $69.98 with no tax and free shipping. It was the "no tax and free shipping" that sealed the deal for me. So now we will see how that all works out for me and if I am happy with the picture quality and this internet ordering experience, I'll be looking to get at least one more.

[Doewhacker]

Oh NO!! Thats the worst site going for ordering!!!

haha Just kidding, welcome to 2012 Doc.

[DTG3k]

Hope you didnt give your credit card info to some Nigerian Royalty while you were ordering it.

[Doc]

[WNYBuckHunter]

Lol, don't give Doc a coronary guys!

Congrats on the cam Doc, hope to see some pics from it!

[Doc]

First thing I'm going to do is set it up in the livingroom and see how it does with the cat. That should give me an idea of the quality of pictures and whether or not I should buy another one. I probably won't be actually setting it outdoors until next spring. I want to get some critter pictures down around the creek and the swamp and right now there is nothing to look at but snow covered ice.

[Geno C]

Doc welcome to the world lol

[wooly]

Here's a nice buck I got on my L-50 this fall Doc. If you decide you want another let me know. This one is for sale.

My opinion is this cam shoots a little heavy on the yellow tinted side. I wanted to experiment with difusing the flash with some homemade filter to see what I'd get, but I never got around to it.

[Doc]

Actually there are some pretty good post-processing programs that can straighten up the color hues a bit. I don't know about yellow. That's one that I am not used to getting. My corrections are usually for pictures that are too blue.

I have been playing around with this L-50, and I am quite disappointed in the trigger speed. It's a lot slower than I have seen in any of the tests. I get the feeling that there might be a lot of empty pictures. Also, the first two test pictures came out very washed out. It is what they call "white pictures". I have had a couple like that on one of my Bushnells. It is a highly washed out condition where the image is almost non-existant. On the IR cameras it usually happens around the time of day where the camera is deciding to use the IR flash. I have never heard of it on white-flash cameras. Anyway, I am still evaluating this camera. I am very concerned about the trigger speed issue, and if that "white picture" problem gets to be frequent, I may not be interested in a second version of this make and model. The jury is still out.

[WNYBuckHunter]

I would get ahold of Moultrie's support about the white outs, they will help you out.

[Doc]

Those first two pictures seem to be the only two white-outs. I'm not sure what that was all about but I have not been able to duplicate that. I set the camera up down in the basement, and took 5 pictures without any whiteouts. But the exposure is a bit over-done. I've got to get this thing out in the open and see if some of the over-exposure is from interior walls reflecting the excess flash all over the place. If I don't get better results, I will contact Moultrie and e-mail them the results and see what they have to say.

[DTG3k]

e-mail them the results and see what they have to say.

You mean you will send them a letter or telegram?

[Doc]

You mean you will send them a letter or telegram?

????

[DTG3k]

????

Just another old joke, to keep pace with the thread. Sorry. lol

[wooly]

Yeah, trigger speed for this unit is around 3-4 sec. Not much you can do to correct that. I heard they had a problem with the 15sec. delay between pics being closer to 30sec. There's supposed to be a download ugrade for that but it doesn't seem to be a factor in 2 shot burst mode. The recovery time is minimal between shots...I'd say no more than 3 seconds from flash to flash. Resolution is also supposed to be better on it's lowest setting so that's what I shot these at as well.

Never experienced the white-out pics with the L-50...like you say, probably the walls bouncing too much flash over exposing things. This unit did take a little getting used to even with the simple controls but once I got it figured out I actually preferred this cam over others in some situations. Good luck with it.

[Doc]

I'm still trying to work with it. I just haven't had a chance to get outdoors and try a few experiments. Busy as hell right now. But I think once it is outdoors in the environment it was designed for, a lot of problems will go away. That long trigger time is a bit distressing, but hopefully that won't be too much of a problem. It's just a good thing to know so whatever set-up I come up with will be looking down trails or other situations where I expect the critter to take longer getting through the picture area.

[Doc]

Ok ...... All is well in the land of Moultrie L-50. The moral of the story is: "Don't try to test out a white-flash camera inside the house.

By the way, there is that damn critter dining on my yews for the second night in a row. Oh ..... you can't see the yews? .....THAT'S BECAUSE THEY ATE THE DARN THINGS UP!!! I'm going to have to go out and a little heart-to-heart talk with him ..... lol.

[fasteddie]

Doc --- That's a healthy looking deer you have there .

By the way that takes better pics than your old Poleroid camera !

[Doc]

Doc --- That's a healthy looking deer you have there .

By the way that takes better pics than your old Poleroid camera !

He's healthy looking because he ate up all of my yews! He also trimmed up our Rhodedendrun (sp?) for us. He knows where all the good stuff is ....... lol. Notice how terrified he is of the scents and sounds around the house and cars. These guys have a calendar and a hunting syllabus, and know when it's safe around the homestead.

I also noted that there was no sign of him being alarmed by the flash. He was too busy concentrating on eating my stuff ..... lol.

I am very happy with the picture quality. Remembering that we are talking about a $70 camera, I think it will serve my purposes just fine. Perhaps it could be a bit more sharper, but those pictures are "as taken" with no post-processing done to them. A little color correction and increased contrast, and I think they will turn out pretty good.

[WNYBuckHunter]

Nice Doc! Should do the job!

[Doc]

Well, this whole fiasco has turned into an absolute nightmare. The L-50 that I bought worked great ...... at first. So I ordered another one. The 2nd one was a total disaster. It appears that it was willing to take the first picture ok, but then decided to turn itself off. No additional pictures, no displays on the LCD, nothing. Until I took a paper clip and poked the reset switch. Then I was able to get it to take another one picture. And yes I understand that there is a delay between pictures which I have set at 1 minute. There was one time when I actually got it to fire twice before it went back to sleep.

Well these things will happen, so I returned that 2nd camera to Hayneedle for a replacement, which arrived yesterday. Guess what, that one does the same thing. So I filled up the original one with batteries and ...... yup, you guessed it. It too is starting to freeze up after the first picture. The only thing that will get it going is poking that reset button. So there you are. Three different cameras and each of them pretty much worthless.

My next step is to try to contact Moultrie and see if there is something that I am doing wrong. It's pretty hard to imagine. It's just about the easiest thing in the world to operate, but who knows? If Moultrie can't help then I guess I will try to get my money back and forget the whole thing.

[Lawdwaz]

Don't give up. When you get a good one you'll have a blast with it. Maybe time to try another brand?

[Doc]

I'm trying to stay positive, but I've got to admit that it's pretty darn frustrating.

[WNYBuckHunter]

Electronics can be a pain. Moutrie is probably going to give you instructions on updating the firmware on the cams.

[Doc]

Nope! ..... I just found out that even the few times when the camera was flashing, most of all that flashing wasn't even taking a picture. Obviously there is more wrong here than just a sensing problem. The flaws are getting too complex and inter-twined, and I think I really don't want to put myself through the frustration and hassle of trying to get everything fixed over the phone. Hayneedle is willing to refund my money, and I'm going to chalk this whole fiasco up to experience, take the cash and run. So now I am back to square one with trying to find a good reliable "white-flash" camera.