| Why Use a Trail Camera | Laser Pinter |
| Infrared (Night) Photography | Trigger Speed |
| Passive Infrared Sensor (PIR) | Moon Phase Imprint |
| IR Flash | Game Call |
| Xenon Flash | SD Card |
| Battery Life | Security |
| Event | |
Why Use a Trail Camera?
A trail camera lets you know how many your targets (deers) there are in the area. Most does look pretty much alike, but with a little practice, you will be able to distinguish individuals by their size, color or number and size of their fawns. Body size and antler configuration make bucks easy to tell apart.
Trail cameras also allow you to get to know the animals (especially deer) that live in your hunting area more intimately than you could by any other means. You will not only learn where the biggest deer live, but you can enjoy the opportunity to document the growth of particular deer from year to year. It is great fun to compare pictures of the same deer from one year to the next as they grow larger antlers.
Most camera-users are surprised to learn how many different bucks live in the area they plan to hunt. You may not see deer when you are in the field, but a camera will see them when you are not, and a camera.
A trail camera can also help determine movement patterns. Its time and date stamp lets you know when and how often deer are using a certain trail, bait station or food plot, which direction they come from, and which deer show up first. A camera can verify whether the biggest bucks are usually the last deer to show up, which is usually the case.
Since a trail camera will photograph anything that triggers it, you'll also get shots of coyotes, fox, raccoons and other animals, some of which may surprise you. Check your cameras regularly, and try to do so at midday to avoid disturbing deer. In areas of high deer numbers, it is not unusual to shoot an entire roll of film in one night.
There are many things you can learn from the photos you get from your trail cameras, but rather than me going into a long, boring dissertation on the subject.
Infrared (Night) Photography:
In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Usually an "infrared filter" is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (and thus looks black or deep red).
Passive Infrared Sensor (PIR):
A passive Infrared sensor (PIR sensor) is an electronic device which measures infrared light radiating from objects in its field of view. PIRs are often used in the construction of PIR-based motion detectors (see below). Apparent motion is detected when an infrared source with one temperature, such as a human, passes in front of an infrared source with another temperature, such as a wall.
All objects emit what is known as black body radiation. This energy is invisible to the human eye but can be detected by electronic devices designed for such a purpose. The term 'passive' in this instance means the PIR does not emit energy of any type but merely accepts incoming infrared radiation.
Infrared radiation enters through the front of the sensor, known as the sensor face. At the core of a PIR is a solid state sensor or set of sensors, made from approximately 1/4 inches square of natural or artificial pyroelectric materials, usually in the form of a thin film, out of gallium nitride (GaN), caesium nitrate (CsNO3), polyvinyl fluorides, derivatives of phenylpyrazine, and cobalt phthalocyanine. (See pyroelectric crystals.) Lithium tantalate (LiTaO3) is a crystal exhibiting both piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties.
The sensor is often manufactured as part of an integrated circuit and may consist of one (1), two (2) or four (4) 'pixels' of equal areas of the pyroelectric material. Pairs of the sensor pixels may be wired as opposite inputs to a differential amplifier. In such a configuration, the PIR measurements cancel each other so that the average temperature of the field of view is removed from the electrical signal; an increase of IR energy across the entire sensor is self-cancelling and will not trigger the device. This allows the device to resist false indications of change in the event of being exposed to flashes of light or field-wide illumination. (Continuous bright light could still saturate the sensor materials and render the sensor unable to register further information.) At the same time, this differential arrangement minimizes common-mode interference; this allows the device to resist triggering due to nearby electric fields.
IR Flash: LED Night Vision flash. Sends a burst of Infrared Energy which is invisible to the human eye. Especially useful for night photos when a visible flash is undesirable such as in high pressure hunting areas.
Xenon Flash:
A xenon flash lamp is an electric glow discharge lamp designed to produce extremely intense, incoherent, full-spectrum white light for very short durations.
The lamp comprises a sealed tube, often made of fused quartz, which is filled with a mixture of gases, primarily xenon, and electrodes to carry electrical current to the gas mixture. Additionally, a high voltage power source is necessary to energize the gas mixture; this high voltage is usually stored on a capacitor so as to allow very speedy delivery of very high electrical current when the lamp is triggered.
The glass envelope is most commonly a thin tube, which may be straight, or bent into a number of different shapes, including helical, "U" shape, and circular (to surround a camera lens for shadowless photography - 'ring flashes'). The electrodes protrude into each end of the tube, and are connected to a capacitor that is charged to a relatively high voltage. This is usually between 250 and 2000 volts, depending on the length of the tube, and the specific gas mixture.
Laser Pinter: A laser pointer generates a red laser beam, which can help people easily align the unit in the forest.
Trigger Speed: The trigger speed is measured by a time delay between the PIR trigger to the camera action. Our trial camera delay is less than one second between a subject passing in front of PIR sensor and image capture of that subject.
Moon Phase Imprint: This function links the current date to the phase of the moon on that date (this data is stored on an internal memory chip), and imprints a icon on your photo which represents the moon phase when the photo was taken.
It will be a useful reference, as it can help determine if particular animals are inactive at night when a full or nearly full moon is present, causing them to be more visible to predators. Or, if some of your night photos seem to have a darker or lighter background (beyond the range of the LED lamps or flash), you can see if that was related to how bright the moon was at the time.
Game Call: Game Call function will play some of animal sounds in the unit such as buck, turkey and cow, which can seduce your target to come close.
SD Card: Secure Digital (SD) is a flash (non-volatile) memory card format developed by Matsushita, SanDisk and Toshiba for use in portable devices, including digital cameras, handheld computers, PDAs and GPS units. As of fall 2007, SD card capacities include 8 MB, 16 MB, 32 MB, 64 MB, 128 MB, 256 MB, and 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 6 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB. Several companies have announced SD cards with 32 GB. Cards with 4-32 GB are considered high-capacity.
Battery Life: Currently, our trail camera is powered by 4 D-Cell batteries, which support a battery life from 1 week to 4 weeks. Time at the camera will function in the field. Dependent on temperature, number of images and number of flashes during that time.
Event: Any time that the PIR senses motion it counts it as an event. Events are recorded to SD Card in a text file. Events are recorded continuously during operation.
Security: One of the most important requirements of any trail camera. Our units have 4 security levels – Padlock, Tree Bracket, Cable Lock and Software Password.
The camera part knowledge please refer to the digital binocular.