Ok so I had bought and put a StealthCam WD2 in the field a week ago and I'll be honest, I was quite excited for the week to pass and get the results back. Overall I think the camera is a pretty good deal for the money, it was rated best in its class by www.chasingame.com (they are still testing the bushnell 11-9200 atm and it might be the new in class winner).

First impressions: I set it up in the backyard and played with it for a few min... the menu system seemed kindof confusing but I thought I had it figured out after noodling with it for a while. It seemed to sense a fairly good distance but the first 10 or so pictures it took of my boy walking back and forth at different speeds resulted in zero pictures of him (he had already exited the field of view when the camera went off.

With the camera configured ok, I took it down and placed it over a watering hole where there seems to be alot of elk activity. When I returned a week later I was surprised to see 168 pictures on it! Wow! I knew I had at least a few pictures on it as the camera was covered in MUD... I dont understand why elk are so curious but they seem obsessed with licking, nudging, smelling, rubbing game cameras .... on a regular basis! I'd say at least 35 of my 168 pictures are of different elk all having a turn at playing with the camera.

Problem #1. I had brought along a portable DVD player and I figured I would just pipe the signal out of the camera into the DVD player to view them... then I could decided if I wanted to return it in exchange for the Bushnell 11-9200 that seems to have faster trigger times and better picture quality. The video output would not work... I fiddled and fiddled with it but I couldnt even get the camera into TV mode. That feature seemed broken on my camera.

I brought the camera home with plans to exchange it. When I got home with it I finally viewed the trailcam pictures on my Computer. Quality as I had seen in others sample pictures is ok but not as good as some of the other cameras.

Problem #2. Every once in a while, the WD2 would take some "white out" pictures... completely washed out with little to no detail. These would be even in the middle of the day pictures.

Problem #3. The clock is completely screwed up. It uses 24 hour time (ie: military) ... the clock was off by 17 hours when I picked it up... and looking at the time stamp of alot of the pictures, its completely wrong. I have pictures timestamped at 3am and you can clearly see by shadows its more along the lines of 9am.

Due to the video out problem, Clock timer problem and the rare whiteframe problem I decided to return it for a Bushnell 11-9200. The bushnell takes much better pictures according to people I've talked to and it has a .25 to .5 trigger time where the WD2 was in the 2-3 second range.

If the stealthcam hadnt had the above problems I would have kept it. If the bushnell has problems as well I'll maybe try another WD2.

Sample Picts (all resized from 1024x2048 to 640x480):


Stupid elk smelling the camera.



Ditto... note the time, 14 hours later



Holy crap, did the camera really just sense those elk 50 yards away??



An example of a bad pict, this is during the day as I got a couple picts 1 min earlier and 1 min later. The camera was set to take 3 picts at a time and all 3 during this sequence were white like this.



Lots of elk visit this watering hole. I have a blind set up just behind where the camera now sits for the upcoming archery elk hunt in 2 weeks. Its an either sex hunt in a "spike only" area so with no chance to shoot a big bull (gotta draw that tag), I'm just looking for a cow... according to this pict I think I'll get a chance



Bulls! Nothing great, just some raghorns.



Looks like this wateringhole is infested with elk.



Spike! I think... is he splitting on his tops? Its too fuzzy to see.


Nice eyelashes


A interesting picture, but I'd rate the coloring of the picture as "poor" & contrast is too high... maybe I'm too picky though.


Bushnell 11-9200 picts comming next week... assuming that camera works anyway


-DallanC

Very interesting. What plans do you have for the Bushnell?
Keep it coming...

Dallen,
On this model does the flash go off in full daylight? That would explain the interest in the camera and the whiteout photo. Whiteout is not a camera fault it is a situation of overexposure, in this case the target is too close to the flash.
One thing for sure, Elk to not have a keen leveling eye.

Thanks for the tip on NewEgg.com. Great prices on SD Flash Memory Cards and I placed an order for two cards yesterday afternoon.

Keep trying! You'll get one of those cameras to your liking. Enjoying the nose smudges. Keep em coming!
Yotebuster

popgun wrote:

Dallen, On this model does the flash go off in full daylight? That would explain the interest in the camera and the whiteout photo. Whiteout is not a camera fault it is a situation of overexposure, in this case the target is too close to the flash.

No, flash should only go off at night. I have now talked with another person having similar WD2 issues so perhaps they had a bad production run on them?

Quote::

One thing for sure, Elk to not have a keen leveling eye.

Elk are stupider than posts... and more "flighty" than a quail. It doesnt take much to spook them and once they get to running they might be in the next state before they stop. Kindof curious around trailcams though. My dad gets alot of sniffing picts on his Moultrie 100.

Quote::

Thanks for the tip on NewEgg.com. Great prices on SD Flash Memory Cards and I placed an order for two cards yesterday afternoon.

Yea, pretty cool they are getting so cheap.

I'll have another great tip for you soon as I win one off ebay in the next day or two... something neat for trailcams


-DallanC

george20042007 wrote:

Very interesting. What plans do you have for the Bushnell? Keep it coming...

Bushnell is in the same spot, pointed the same way... so if it gets any picts we can compare quality... we can also compare picture count vs the WD2 after its been down there a week.

I had the WD2 set to take 3 pictures per triggering, 1 second apart, with 1 minute between event triggerings. So technically the 168 pictures really were only 56 trigger events. The bushnell is set to take a single picture event every 30 sec. I should be able to get right around 1000 pictures on my 512mb card... which is PLENTY LOL

Man I gotta say, this whole trailcam thing is actually kindof exciting. Once I find a cam I want to keep, I'll get some camo duct-tape and hide it better.


-DallanC

A funny thought occured as I was reading all this. In my part of the country, I'd probably get pictures of immagrants more than game animals. I can just see it now, the smudges on the lense
Keep it coming...

Now George, we are not that politically correct. Be honest, they are wetbacks right? Not Imigrants? Imigrants do it legally.

Are there trees in the desert or are you going to hurt yourself mounting a trail cam on one of those tall cactus plants?

DallanC wrote:

Sample Picts (all resized from 1024x2048 to 640x480): Stupid elk smelling the camera. Ditto... note the time, 14 hours later Holy crap, did the camera really just sense those elk 50 yards away?? An example of a bad pict, this is during the day as I got a couple picts 1 min earlier and 1 min later. The camera was set to take 3 picts at a time and all 3 during this sequence were white like this. Lots of elk visit this watering hole. I have a blind set up just behind where the camera now sits for the upcoming archery elk hunt in 2 weeks. Its an either sex hunt in a "spike only" area so with no chance to shoot a big bull (gotta draw that tag), I'm just looking for a cow... according to this pict I think I'll get a chance Bulls! Nothing great, just some raghorns. Looks like this wateringhole is infested with elk. Spike! I think... is he splitting on his tops? Its too fuzzy to see. Nice eyelashes A interesting picture, but I'd rate the coloring of the picture as "poor" & contrast is too high... maybe I'm too picky though. Bushnell 11-9200 picts comming next week... assuming that camera works anyway -DallanC

I can't see the picts Dallan, only an "x". For the rest i see most of other pictures here on the site.

Gidday Ghost...its a 5 yr old thread mate...I think you will find the pics have been purged to cut down on storage space or bandwidth.

Cheers, Vince

Thx my friend,
Well, many other pics & vids to see. So, no problem

Im pleased someone else asked the question before I did.
update please Mr D??