Never point a trail camera due east or west because the sunrise and sunset will often blow out an image. South-facing can also cause problems because it’s in the sun all day. The best tactic is to face your trail cameras north whenever possible. Get up close and personal with your trail camera photos. Even with the best trail cameras that shoot high megapixel images, your goal should be to have your targets pass within 10 yards of the camera. Also, when the bucks begin to lay down scrapes is one of the most exciting times to run cameras.” -Heartland Bowhunter’s Mike Hunsucker Trail Camera Settings “My favorite location for trail cameras is on natural travel routes–areas where the deer move through freely and regularly where you know their movement is not influenced by anything. Too many mistakes are made when it comes to understanding and using the right trail camera settings. Guide for the Best Trail Camera Settings: Make sure you spend a day with any new trail camera so you know all its capabilities before leaving it in the woods. Are you after photos or videos? Video files are, of course, much bigger and will use more memory, but sometimes that’s what you’re after. “I always run my cameras on Picture Mode. I also usually set a 30-second picture interval.” -Identical Draw’s Nathan Krick Only if I have a consistent buck I want video of will I change the camera to video. Second to the image itself, knowing exactly when that big buck walked by is why we put up trail cameras.

How many photos should I set my camera for, per trigger, and how long should my delay be? If you are setting your trail camera over a bait or mineral lick, turn your photo frequency down to one to two photos per capture, so you won’t get hundreds of pictures of a deer that is hanging out and feeding.įactors like daylight savings and time zones need to be double-checked in your camera settings.

Turning your delay up to two to five minutes will also help conserve memory card space. “Video mode can be very beneficial when setting up a camera on a food plot where deer in the background may be too far away to trigger the camera but when a closer deer triggers the camera, you can scrub the video to identify potential target bucks in the background.” -Heartland Bowhunter’s Mike Hunsucker If you’re setting up over a game trail, turn up the frequency to two to three photos and delay down to zero so you’re sure you won’t miss that big buck following a whitetail doe.

What is camera sensitivity and how should I set it? The PIR sensor in a trail camera is responsible for telling the camera when to take a picture, and it is based on motion detection and the temperature difference via infrared heat.When it’s hot outside, there is less of a difference between the ambient temperature and the body temperature of an animal, so you need to set the sensitivity higher. In colder temperatures, you can turn the sensitivity to low, because there is a greater difference in temperature between the animal and the ambient environment. If you are getting a lot of “wind pictures,” where the camera’s motion sensor is picking up on grass blowing in front of the camera, or leaves blowing across a food plot, turn the sensitivity down. When setting up on a field edge or area where the deer might be further away, turn the sensitivity up so you’re able to capture a deer on the edge of the detection zone. Reformat your SD card for your trail camera.Have you ever pulled a card from your favorite trail camera and popped it into a digital camera or trail camera viewer because you couldn’t wait to see what walked through? Digital cameras and trail cameras read and write data differently. Always use the best batteries for trail cameras.Before you leave your trail camera to do its job, format the SD card. An estimated 95% of all trail cameras use AA batteries, and one trail camera manufacturer has estimated that hunters burn through 50 million AA batteries every year. With those numbers, it’s tempting to cut costs and use cheap, or rechargeable, batteries. A non-working camera in the field is worthless.

Lithium batteries have been proven to last longer in colder climates than alkaline ones.

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