I didn't need a deer camera...I needed to find out what animals were tearing up our lawn and eating our flowers in the garden. The camera worked out great for closeup surveillance (4 feet) as well as at its advertised distance out to 50 feet.
I opted for the Bushnell 119445 model because the reviews on the models with the color viewing screen said that the screen was difficult to see and not worth the extra money. My model 119445 has a B&W LCD display that you use to program the unit and it works just fine...pretty easy to program...and the camera has an adequate range of parameters (like motion-sensor sensitivity and time between pictures) for what I needed. I just used the camera's default values (single picture per trip, normal sensitivity, and 20s lockout time). I like that you can increment parameters (like time of day and date) both forward and reverse...eases setting these values. One minor issue is that the memory is volatile...if you replace the batteries you have to reset everything.
A big question for me was whether the unit would work close up (say five feet) and be triggered by animals as small as a rat, squirrel, raccoon, possum, etc at night. The answer is yes, it is easily triggered by rats eating our snapdragons at night four feet away and we found that we could also watch the snails as they attacked.
Another question was the image quality...I'm using the camera's 5Mpixel default setting (it can also be set at 3 MP or 8 MP) and the daylight color images are very sharp and easily viewed...comparable to a good point'n'shoot digital camera; each 5MP jpeg is about 630KB in size. When the light drops off at night the camera automatically switches over and starts taking 5Mpixel B&W images using the IR LEDs as the light source (the B&W images are the same memory size 630KB as the daylight color images). These B&W images are quite easily viewed...sort of like the military night-vision scenes you see on TV.
Did the IR LEDs scare the animals...didn't seem to. On the second night surveying the snapdragons I ended up with 50 pictures of rats eating snaps between midnight and 4:30 in the morning.
Some Lessons Learned:
1) I got around 100 images each night. I found that the easiest way to view the pictures was to pull the SD card out and slip it into a one-card reader that plugs into my computer's USB port. Looking at each image individually, the animals were a bit hard to spot and the slide-viewing process was very slow. Looking at the thumbnails on the computer, it was very difficult to see the animals. What worked very well is to view the images as a full-screen slide show using software such as "Windows Picture and Fax Viewer." When viewed as a slide show in rapid succession, the animals in each image jump out as something new in an otherwise identical scene...this makes the images quick to review and the animals quick to spot. For a show for friends I integrated the images into a slide show with a 1-second hold between slides...makes a great movie of our garden being devoured by rats and snails.
2) If trying to view the images at a remote location away from a computer, one option is to load the Bushnell's SD card into your digital camera and use the camera's viewer to examine the images. One reviewer said in disgust that this didn't work with his camera because of compatibility problems...it worked just fine using my Pentax K-7 digital SLR camera, which has a very good 3" 920,000 pixel display. In fact I didn't reformat the SD card for the Bushnell, I just pulled a 1GB SD card out of my Pentax and loaded it into the Bushnell...worked perfect and even used the Pentax file structure. However, this may not work with cards for other cameras (Canon, etc). I also tried using my little Pentax Optio W10 point'n'shoot...it was totally capable of viewing the Bushnell images, but the lower quality 2.5" 115,000 pixel display made spotting the small animals problematic. For animals that more fully fill the frame, the W10 should be OK. With respect to the video clips, the Bushnell uses a ASF file type, whereas the Pentax uses an AVI...thus, no viewing of the videos on the Pentaxes.
3) How about batteries: My application was a short one, so I just loaded four Alkaline AA batteries in the top four battery slots per the directions (the camera will accept 8 AAs for a longer life). CAUTION: the battery polarity is NOT marked in the battery compartment...only in the instruction book (a bad manufacturer error). So I marked the polarity in the battery compartment with a silver felt pen. After three days of shooting 300 pictures...99% at night using the IR LEDs...I measured the battery voltage. The batteries had dropped from 1.61 volts to 1.43 volts...indicating they still had a good charge, but were definitely discharging. Not sure at what lower voltage the camera stops working.
4) What's the case like? It seems very solid with a gasket seal and suitcase style latches...very similar to a Pelican waterproof case. I didn't test its waterproofness...but was generally impressed with the design. I mounted the camera on my camera tripod using the units 1/4-20 threaded mount.
5) For those technically oriented, the individual Bushnell images do come with embedded EXIF data...but it's very simplistic (f/2.8 lens, no shutter speed data, 100ASA film speed). However, the EXIF data contain the date and time of the picture if you failed to turn that function on and want that data later.
Would I recommend it to a friend?...definitely! Would I buy it again...YES, probably the same model...don't think the color viewer would have helped much for me...but might be worth having if you want to check out any videos while in the field. At 640x480, the videos are much lower resolution.
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