[Closed] Wildlife camera recommendations

Couple of pointers. The better ones don't have a visible red warning light on them, which can make the camera a giveaway to thieves and poachers etc.

This one APEMAN
is a steal at the price. Great camera resolution and decent videos, for not silly money.

It takes 8 AA batteries, and an SDHC card.

I've had a couple out monitoring some suspected poachers, and the batteries lasted a good fortnight, with several hundred high resolution photos and dozens of 20 second videos.

It has decent features, with a timer setting (so you can set it to monitor during a set timeframe) a PIR sensitivity setting so it isn't set off by leaves or whatever, a time/date stamp, you can set a couple of photos at your chosen resolution, and you can set the length of video capture to suit.

The instructions are printed in decent English too, so it isn't a nightmare to set up.

My only gripe is the tethering strap, which has a plastic/chinesium buckle which snapped and flew off into the undergrowth, but the strap is long enough to go around a mature-ish tree and be tied off with a couple of half-hitches.

That Amazon price there is a bout fifteen quid cheaper than I got mine for, so all good.

Did you catch up any poacher footage?

Not yet. Info suggests last weekend was possibly a hot time, and I'm off to collect the footage tonight.

Thanks for your advice Scapegoat, it does look like a good deal! What is being poached?

What is being poached?

Well eggs obviously, duurrr.

We use this one or at least an earlier generation...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crenova-Upgraded-Wildlife-Detection-Monitoring-white/dp/B00V9HPAB2/

Some examples

https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/49079253367/in/photostream

https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/40971658030/in/album-72157692167980190/

Loads of HH videos.. https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/albums/72157692167980190

What is being poached?

Some of those lovely old country "traditionalists" are being tempted to visit the farm in their nice cars, driving over the drillings and chasing down Capreolus Capreolus with their nice dags. There's a part of me wouldn't begrudge them a good meal from the deer, but the ****ers -s just leave the mangled carcasses in the ditch once they've had their "sport."

Very pleased with the apeman. Hedgehog the first night (you should be sleeping!), and a fox the second night. Thanks for your recommendation Scapegoat.

Looking for one of these now as it's hog season again, don't want to keep buying big batteries tho...

We still have leccy in the garden from when we had a pond, can any of these cameras be wired into the mains, or are they all battery powered?

The Apeman takes 8 AA, and when I went to collect the footage a fortnight after setting them they'd recorded hours of footage and the Duracell Ultras were showing more than half power left.

My cameras have the option of a power supply, either 6V or 12V DC. So you could connect it to the mains. Though would have to make sure it is waterproof etc.

With good rechargeable batteries (Eneloop), should last a while anyway. I have had over 3 months from a set of 8 AA. Though it will depend on the make/model of camera, and how much you are recording.

Or some of them have the option of connecting a solar panel, as well as batteries.

Most have a 12v DC input, or just use rechargeables. I find it only really drains the batteries if it gets cold at night eg 5c and below, at which point they really struggle.

Getting busy with Hedgehogs now, all my feeders are being cleaned out every night by them!

Eneloop batteries are pretty good at low temperatures. Supposed to work at down to -20C. Yes, they will struggle a bit, but should still last longer than most NiMH or alkaline.

We had a hedgehog visit a few times last week.
I made a little den and put some food and water out for it, then used a video baby monitor plugged in to a USB power pack to watch. It worked really well.

I got an Apeman too, but an earlier one , with the red LEDs, so its a prolem to find somewhere peopel walking by wont notice the red leds.
Otherwise its quite good,but my one could be designed better, so i could put a big jubilee clip around it or something to lock it to a tree. The back will strap to something, but the catch holding the front is flimssy and easy to open
and i dont think it takes an external power supply

ok, ive been googling and do indeed find some with external power supplies (never included), so what would i actually need?

ive got one of these in the garage i can use.....

[img] [/img]

.....plus a feed from the mains going to the garden, so i assume id need some sort of transformer wired into this, then into the camera? (i maybe need to ask a sparkie rather than on this thread unless any of you actually know?)

perfect scenario for me would be hard wired in so i dont need to worry about batteries, no red light, and also able to be accessed by wifi, so i can just go to laptop at any time, and check whats been recorded rather than open camera up, take out memory card, insert into laptop etc.

thanks

Just buy a 12v PSU and run a some long speaker cable to the camera?

would this Yi Dome 1080 camera be enough foryou?
Its not waterproof but you could put something over it
you can watch and control it live on your phone, it tracks the animals up, down and sideways
they make a little noise when they swivel.
£30 on amazonia

I just got my apeman out, to use it, and I cant get it to work Tried formatting 2 sd cards, but I just get a Live screen, which goes onto say 'autowork mode' then goes blank
buttons dont seem to do anything now.
I've had it about a year and not misused it,nor used it much

Just buy a 12v PSU and run a some long speaker cable to the camera?

thanks, ill look into how to do this.

Its not waterproof but you could put something over it

tbh, i think i ought to stick with a dedicated waterproof one really, just asking for trouble otherwise.

thanks

just out of interest, would a cctv camera do the same job?

i ask as this one from screwfix is around the same price as a wildlife camera, and has wifi, mains powered etc.

am i missing something obvious?

@alric if it’s the same as mine, you set it up in the test position (middle). Confused me for a while as I thought mine was duff.