Stealth Cam 8MP 30IR Game Camera

This camera is awesome! I've had several game cameras before this one, and they've mostly been okay. But this one is the best by far. The daytime pictures are so clear and the ones taken at night aren't bad. I use it to keep up with what goes through my yard (we have a small creek and I sometimes put out corn), not for hunting. So far I've captured a mother deer and her fawn many times, plus raccoons, a fox, and even a couple of very clear photos of a bear. I like that it has three preset modes and it also has a custom mode which I haven't used yet. And the batteries (it uses eight AA batteries) seem to last a long time. I've had it set up for about a month now and haven't changed batteries yet. It has some false triggers, where there's nothing in the picture (I'm assuming it's triggered by wind or a moving branch), but it doesn't seem to have as many of these as other cameras I've had. The strap is really long and was able to go around my biggest tree. Other reviewers have mentioned it should have a snap buckle on the strap, and I agree the clamping mechanism could be better. I had to thread it through, then kind of tuck the end in to make sure it was secure. But it seems to be fine. I wouldn't want to deal with moving it a lot, but so far it is holding just fine. The camera is small and seems to be built very solid. I'm hoping it lasts a long time.

I'm using a couple of these cameras to monitor whitetail populations on a local property and so far they've worked pretty well. Image quality has been pretty good but not great. Not sure if I have them set for optimal resolution.. The pictures are certainly usable but not as crisp as others I've seen on line from the same model. I haven't used the video feature yet. They are very easy to set up with multiple pre-set selections that are easy to select. Night time infrared photos are OK but like all cameras in this class, the photos are low resolution black and white flashy images. I have a couple older stealthcam cameras that actually seem to take better photos but again I'm not sure I have these set up correctly. The first batteries lasted quite a while (several weeks) and our sandisk ultra 16 mb cards worked fine. The batteries would have probably lasted longer but we had a couple windstorms that caused the cameras to take a few thousand pictures of branches blowing in the wind. See the attached images to get an idea of photo quality. Reset and trigger time are both fast enough for my purposes. Be careful inserting sd cards as it's very easy to put them in backwards and jam them in the slot. I use security boxes and locks so I haven't used the nylon strap that comes with the cameras. Check out the attached photos for examples of day and night photos. I just noticed that some of these were taken on a foggy misty day so the pictures would have been much better in bright sunlight. All in all, good cameras for the money and very easy to set up and use. Amazon has a great price on these. From my research I think these are These are probably the best cameras available in this price range.

Very happy with this trail cam. I have had this going for two months now and no problems. I bought it to record along a secluded and wooded part of my yard that has a trail next to it. I wanted to see what animals come by or human trespassers. Having this cam has been wonderful. I keep it set on the auto setting 10 second video. Night video has no color but is very clear. The day time video's have crisp color and very clear. I had to tilt the cam down some because traffic on the main road about 50 feet away was triggering it to record. I have recorded vehicles coming down the trail by my house that don't belong and have no reason to be here. It does have a red light that comes on when triggered at night, and once trespassers see the light and cam, they leave and haven't come back. I have recorded wildlife such as coyotes and bears coming up to get a drink from the bird bath and a neighbors dog that comes over daily. Cam has been in the pouring rain and came through just fine. No problems with rain. My only disappointment was when I tried to record a video on a custom setting of longer than the pre-set 10 seconds. The video from the custom setting was jumpy and unusable. But truthfully I've never needed to have more than the 10 second pre-set. It triggers again right away if the subject is still there and moves again. This is my first experience with owning a trail cam and so far I am very pleased with this one. I love it! ** Adding this note. I found out that when it stops recording night video's, it's time to change the batteries even though it will still record day time video. :-)

I bought this camera summer of 2015. It's first time out (besides a test run in my yard) I left it strapped and cable-locked to a tree on the top of a ridge at 10,000 feet in the WAY back country of Wyoming. I set it to take three pictured every 30 seconds in burst mode. I used a 32gb memory card and eight lithium ion batteries. Said farewell to it mid October. Went back October 2016, exactly one year later and found it working, snapping pics in like-new condition. Even the nylon strap was flawless. And the cable-lock rust free. I got almost 650 photos, including all sizes of Mule deer bucks, some in velvet, some after losing their antlers and some throughout their new growth. Many does, fawns, a few cow and calf elk, a one-eyed yearling bull, a fox, rabbits and one hunter. It snapped pics from October through mid November then it was barried in snow (it was mounted 4 feet off the ground). It hibernated until the snow melted below it in mid May and snapped pics until the day I picked it up again in October 2016. A spider made it's little egg sac on the lens hole in June, so photos from then on were half blocked from that, otherwise both daytime and nighttime photos are great. Some of the best I've seen from a trail camera. It recorded the day, time and temperature of each photo. I think the coldest recorded temp was 20 and warmest was in the 80's. I just set it up to catch a mischievous critter at the produce farm I work at and those same batteries from Wyoming were still over 90%. Good little camera! Fun too!

Takes Great Photos but the camera failed within the first 3 months. I had to return the camera to the manufacturer who replaced it under warranty after about a 4 week delay. Defects happen and the manufacturer lived up to their warranty but still a failure so soon after the purchase is disappointing.

Edit: cameras are still going strong. I pull them in for a couple of months during the winter when there's nothing going on so that's maybe helped. Left these out for about a couple months (they're in for winter now) and they worked great. Good pictures although the flash caused it to be a little washed out if the animal was too close during the night but they're not totally indistinguishable. Video worked great as well and the sound was really clear. Excellent camera at an awesome price. Checked Cabelas and Field and Stream and Amazon had the best price.

This unit was purchased to replace a Moultrie cam that inadvertently fell into a pond and was ruined. The performance and features of that cam, which was $50 more expensive if memory serves, were probably worth the extra investment, but in this case we were trying to replace the Moultrie on a limited budget. The specific aspects of performance and features of the Moultrie that I miss in this Stealth Cam are the lower-intensity IR lighting and the built-in display, respectively. We use a game cam to monitor our property for nocturnal predators, since we raise heritage breeds of ducks and geese. For daytime image capture (or more specifically, anytime that IR illumination is not required), the G30 works fine. Nearly all of our predator activity is nocturnal, however, and the G30 IR LEDS are bright enough to attract the attention of animals at the very edge of the camera's range. Further than that and we can't say, since all that comes up on video is the sound of an animal walking or running through the leaves with no actual animal appearing on the video. Some animals aren't bothered, it seems; raccoons ignore the light. Deer do not; they walk right up to the cam for a closer look. The primary concerns for us are coyotes and foxes, which at least locally are extremely wary of any red light sources. We were consistently able to capture images of both using the Moultrie, which had much more subdued IR LED illumination. So far, we have not caught a single coyote or fox on film, but have plenty of videos featuring the sounds of animals walking through the leaves, away from the cam. Of course, we can't be certain as to the identity of the animal(s), which means that we could be getting visits that we are unaware of. That defeats our primary purpose of owning this item. Our neighbors are reporting that fox and coyote activity around their chicken pens is increasing as spring nears, so there's no question that the predators are around. I'm giving this unit four stars because of this issue with IR.

I like the camera reasonably well. I just returned the G30 because the CUSTOM programming feature stopped working after about 24 hours. I contacted StealthCam's Tech Service. The only "fix" they proposed failed to resolve the problem. So I sent it back. (Thank you Amazon-Prime for easy returns !!) So I deducted two stars for the unit failing within one day, and a third star for performance issues (below). It earned its two remaining stars for being easy to use at a reasonable price. More details below. I hope to add some sample images of how it performed when time permits. I am not a hunter so my interest is a) figuring out what kinds of cute furry critter wonders around my yard and b) what kind of trespasser goes through my yard on rare occasions. Were I a hunter, a photo of a deer that is blurred or where the deer is a white deer-shaped blob because it got a bit too close (the camera does not adjust the exposure well enough in the dark for close in use) might be telling the hunter all they need to know. But that doesn't suit my needs. So admittedly my remarks are intended for prospective buyers who are not hankering for venison. Things I DID NOT like were: 1) Still photos IN THE DARK do not provide a brief enough exposure time to stop movement. A person walking at normal speed across the frame will be difficult to recognize, let alone identify. If they stand still however they should be recognizable as long as they are not up close. Video in darkness however was much better for that purpose. 2) The G30's IR LEDs "glow" more than I expected and make the unit far too easy for a human to spot in the dark. To replace the defective G30 I decided to pay the extra for the G42 which should be harder to spot. 3) The G30 did not behave reliably with Nickel Metal Hydride rechargeable cells. NiMH cells produce a slightly lower battery voltage compared to alkaline cells. The unit senses that as if the battery were reaching depletion. Elsewhere I read a knowledgeable sounding reviewer stating that StealthCam's units stop doing night video when they sense low battery conditions, but still work well enough in other modes. That probably explains the erratic behavior I had with NiMH rechargeable cells even when they were freshly charged. 4) The IR LEDs produce a rather distinct "hot spot" in the center of the frame. I would have liked it if they were more even across the frame. Pro: I didn't expect to find a 1/4-20 tripod thread on the bottom, nor did I expect to find an external 12 VDC input jack with a weather cap. It has both. On the back surface it has slits for a strap plus plastic rings you can thread a cable through to make the thief bring tools to steal your camera. And the hinged face plate has a hasp feature so that you can add a padlock. Comments that are neither pro nor con: Do not be surprised if IR night imagery does not accurately differentiate light / dark clothing. For most of the experiments I did I was wearing navy blue neck gaiter, maroon sweat shirt, mid-gray sweat pants. All three rendered as if I were wearing white from head to foot. Different materials and pigments do strange things in IR lighting. For those who care, Army woodland pattern BDU material does what it was designed to do under IR illumination....make you blend into a forest somewhat.

Excellent

awesome price and it arrived very quickly. I tested it out on our cats overnight right away and it works excellent. I'm looking forward to setting it up in the fall before deer season.

Great for the price works as it should

good robust design, but a bit of a fiddle changing things on the small display. Colour pictures good, but night time pictures poor unless the object is very close. After approximately 10 months the unit stopped taking pictures, yet all other display functions seemed to work. Awaiting a response from the supplier...

A well made product, much better than the Bushnell units. Easy to set up with some faults. The trigger time is set to 5 seconds minimum which may be too much for some uses. The video run time should be able to be set but it always runs for 30 seconds despite a longer figure in the setting. It is very useful to be able to set the activity time to prevent recording when its not suitable (during the day). The LED's do glow red when filming but it remains dark at other times. I wanted the unit for small animals (hedgehogs etc) and it is great for that, the image is NOT burnt out at close distance unlike the Bushnell device I ordered previously. I have not tried it at distance in the dark with larger targets, but it does work well in daylight well when tried. Overall well pleased for the price paid. Not sure what support is available from Stealthcam, firmware installed is newer than that showing on the website where there is no mention of the Version2 device. ( brief reply after 5 weeks saying I have the latest software - no help with the timings so very disappointed). Battery life is around 8 weeks with a few videos per night. When down to around 30% there is not enough to power the unit so while it looks good nothing is recorded. I feel that the trip delay of 5 seconds is too long, some animals are gone before the video starts! That needs sorting!