25th Oct, 2016
Botswana Predator Conservation
Question
Asked 20th Jun, 2014
Can anyone suggest trail cameras (wildlife camera traps): for filming (video) in HD?
Up to now I have used stand alone Mini DVRs and CCTV cameras for video and Reconyx PC900 for still images. Although I'm now consider to try a wildlife camera trap that record HD video (only interested in video). Any suggestions? My usage will be in a varying environment, but not too cold or too humid. Most important is trigger speed, sensitivity and video quality.
Most recent answer
I have tested Reconyx XR6 Ultrafires using a trained dog (approx 60 cm tall) as a more realistic target than a walking human. The video and pictures are of good quality BUT the detection zones of the Reconyx movement detector are set up in such a way that only animals moving across the field of view (FOV) are reliably detected. Animals moving at anything other than a right angle to the direction that the camera is aimed have a lower probability of detection, and the dog can walk 20 m towards an XR6 and 20m away from it and only trigger two picture when it is within 2m of the camera. This leads to large numbers of missed events (which are unkown unknowns when cameras are in the field since there is no independent record of when animals were in the FOV) unless you have animals that reliably walk in a predictable direction.
The trigger delay on video is more than one second and the maximum video length is 30s, with a 5-6s recovery period between the end of a video and the next trigger. At ranges of 5-10 m you will first see the animal as it walks across the center of the FOV, and within 5 m you will get its tail as it leaves (unless you are working on tortoises or hedgehogs !).
All Answers (12)
20th Jun, 2014
Hi Ronny
Most new trail cameras will record video of varying lengths and there are several HD models available. I use Bushnell HD Trophy Cams which are pretty good and the Ltl Acorn 6210. The latest models of these cameras also allow you to record videos and still images at the same time. They also offer the facility to adjust the night shutter speed so you can choose between quality of image and brightness. A lot depends on your budget of course and how you will be using the video/images.
Good luck with your research.
Vivien
2 Recommendations
22nd Jun, 2014
I also use Bushnell HD Trophy Cams and they're great, although a bit hard on batteries. But they are very robust and reliable.
1 Recommendation
I can make you in touch with my colleague Brittany who brought the camera from the US, but it works very well in humid and rainy tropical forest. In the past, we thought that camera traps are only good in dry forest, but that is no longer true.
1 Recommendation
Yes please Jonah, put me in touch with your colleague. I try to gather information about camera before buying it.
Hei Ronny, we have used a Litl Acorn 6210 on sparrowhawks (breeding sites) around Oslo for the last 2 years. It is indeed a good tool, but be aware of the video quality of the "HD" trailcameras are not like the "HD" on e.g. a Gopro. If you want, i can send you a clip as an example.
A cool feature, is the IR lamp that allows filming at night.
About the file sizes; 1 minute of filming (AVI) (with sound) needs about 50mb on the card.
Hope this helps,
Hi Andreas, how many days has it last when monitoring sparrowhawks? Yes, please send me a video clip as an example. Thank you.
Ronny: We have not monitored nests yet; (that is hopefully a future project).
We have used the trailcamera on plucking posts (we have only used one camera uptil now), to record the age of the male and the usage of the posts. The camera has been left recording for up to two weeks, sometimes capturing photo and sometimes video. Are you planning to film contineously or in intervals? Do you need the inbuilt motion detector?
Here is an excellent resource http://www.chasingame.com/ they review all the remotely-triggered camera traps.
1 Recommendation
I used blackflash Cuudeback cameras for my video recording of white rhino behaviour. Blackflash means that there is no light at night which does mean the quality is reduced at night but the positive is that there is no disturbance to natural behaviour. Quality during the day is fantastic. The time it takes to restart another video is very quick (~1 second) if you select that, and videos can last up to 30 seconds. I used them continually for 1 year in the field and never had a problem.
Hi Ronny,
We use Bushnell's Natureview HD Max cameras because we found that they have the better video and sound among trail cams.
One minute of video takes about 120MB on a card, and we tend to run out of storage on a 32GB SD before the 12 AA batteries are depleted.
For a review see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkc9fiAKRxo
For me the main downsides are that they record for a maximum of only one minute and then need between 2.5-5.0 seconds recovery time before retriggering. I would have liked to have the option to record for several minutes at least.
Hope this helps!
1 Recommendation
I have tested Reconyx XR6 Ultrafires using a trained dog (approx 60 cm tall) as a more realistic target than a walking human. The video and pictures are of good quality BUT the detection zones of the Reconyx movement detector are set up in such a way that only animals moving across the field of view (FOV) are reliably detected. Animals moving at anything other than a right angle to the direction that the camera is aimed have a lower probability of detection, and the dog can walk 20 m towards an XR6 and 20m away from it and only trigger two picture when it is within 2m of the camera. This leads to large numbers of missed events (which are unkown unknowns when cameras are in the field since there is no independent record of when animals were in the FOV) unless you have animals that reliably walk in a predictable direction.
The trigger delay on video is more than one second and the maximum video length is 30s, with a 5-6s recovery period between the end of a video and the next trigger. At ranges of 5-10 m you will first see the animal as it walks across the center of the FOV, and within 5 m you will get its tail as it leaves (unless you are working on tortoises or hedgehogs !).
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