So we had a couple of issues with the new camera, but they’re only partly related to the camera itself.
My routine with the trail cams is to switch memory cards every morning (weather willing). The first time I switched out the micro disc on this camera, I wasn’t able to see the screen inside very well, which distracted me from something important. It wasn’t until I switched cards again the next day, and tried to view the second day’s recordings on the desktop, that I realized I had not formatted the card before using it. When I first set up the trail cam, I formatted the card right in the camera, but with the screen not working when I changed to the new card, I completely forgot, and hadn’t thought to do it on the desktop earlier.
Then we got hit with a blizzard and temperatures plummeted, which meant I did not get out to switch memory cards on the cameras for 2 days.
Yesterday, Christmas day, we actually hit -1C/30.2F!
That gave me the chance to get out, shovel paths to the cameras and switch out the memory cards.
The card on the new camera had nothing on it.
It was completely blank. Just like the screen inside, when I switched it to set up mode, turned it off, turned it back on.
The other camera had recordings on it, but only for 1 day, really. I got to see our angel driving past our driveway in his tractor, slowing down… then backing up and opening the door to look down our driveway… then pulling into our driveway and getting out to climb our gate to come to our door. What a pleasure to then watch as he later cleared our driveway! I was very impressed by his ability to maneuver that beast of a front end loader in reverse. That boy knows how to handle that machine! :-D
With the other camera, as the batteries drain, it shows up during night shots. White lines begin to appear, streaking across the frame, becoming more severe as the batteries drain more. It does not affect daytime shots, since the camera doesn’t use extra battery juice to power the infrared flash. In this older camera, there were a couple of night files, then nothing until the morning I switched cards. Which tells me we had nothing going by to trigger either camera for a day.
I ended up bringing the CamPark T40 inside, opening it up and turning it on and off, every now and then, as it warmed up. After a while, the screen inside did try to flicker to life, only to immediately go dark again. Once, it finally flickered on long enough that I could see the battery indicator.
It had only 1 bar!
I decided to put in fresh – room temperature! – batteries.
The camera worked just fine.
After having to reset the time and date again, I set it up outside again. I just checked the files this morning, and it worked beautifully. It even caught a deer that walked under it; it had to have just jumped the fence behind the camera, then used the path I’d shoveled to walk to the driveway. With the other cameras, it would never have been caught. The other camera did not catch the deer at all, even though it walked across the driveway. The motion sensor range on this camera is so much broader! This is a huge bonus.
As for the other batteries, because they were new, chances are they are fine now that they’re thawed out. I don’t have a battery tester, though, so we’ll find out when we try to use them in other things.
With the other cameras, the batteries are dropped in from the bottom, 4 wide and 2 deep. This camera has all 8 batteries in one flat row. It seems that this makes them much more susceptible to the cold!
As winter progresses, we will see how much of a problem this will be. I think, as soon as we can afford to, I’ll invest in a solar charged battery pack for it, and we shall see how those handle the cold.
As this point, I am glad we still have one of the old cameras going, as it kept recording in the cold, even as the new camera’s batteries froze and failed.
Right now, that is the main thing that makes me hesitate about getting another CamPark T40. At least for winter use.
As I write this, we have warmed up to -26C/-14.8F, with a wind chill of -30C/-22F It’ll keep warming up for the next couple of days, and tomorrow – Christmas Day – is now expected to reach a balmy -5C/23F!
When I headed out this morning to tend the critters (I have been skipping most of my rounds outside right now!), I was surprised to find no kitties in the cat house, though a couple were outside. I know they had been in the shelter last night, as I went out to give them a treat. We set our turkey to brine overnight, and I cut up the organs, neck and excess skin as a treat for them. All of which was frozen solid. It doesn’t look like any of the cats braved the cold for the treat at all! In fact, most of the kibble was untouched. I do put some just inside the door of the cat house, and most of that was gone, but I think it’s just too cold. Even dry kibble freezes and can be harder to eat, I think.
As I was putting out fresh warm water and topping up the kibble with some that wasn’t frozen, I could hear a plaintive meowing. I spotted Nosy, out by the storage house, tucked under a lilac bush. He is normally a quiet kitty, but this morning, he was just looking at me pathetically and complaining.
So, I shoveled a path for him.
There was already a slight path in the snow, showing where they had been leaping through the snow to get to and from the shelters. They were very happy to not have to do that anymore! You can see that Nosy immediately took advantage of the situation to get to the food, no longer complaining. :-) Even Ginger was happy for the path. :-D
There were plenty of deer tracks in the snow around the house, including here, where you can see they were trying to get at the ornamental apples. These apples are smaller than cherries, but food is food! The snow at the feeding station was well trampled and dug up, as both deer and birds tried to get at the buried feed.
Now that the critters are fed, it’s time to get to work for our non-traditional Wigilia feast tonight.
Just in case I don’t get a chance to post tomorrow, I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. May you all be warm and cozy, and your days filled with joy and blessings. May the new year bring you peace, good health and abundance!
That just doesn’t happen. Especially with a locked gate and snowed in driveway!
It was the renter’s farm hand. He had been driving by with their tractor and noticed we’d cleared a few paths in the snow, so he stopped, climbed the gate, and offered to clear the driveway for us! Last year, he happened by while I was out with the electric snow blower, working on the driveway. The gate was open, so he drove right in and cleared it for me! He did in a few minutes, what would have taken me hours.
What an absolute sweetheart!
I quickly got coat and boots on and unlocked the gate for him.
What a beautiful sight!
The picture looks blurry because the window I was taking it through was frosting up faster than I could clear it and get my phone ready to take a picture!
I had started to lock the gate up when I figured I should take a picture from the road. He even widened the sides of the driveway at the road before he left!
Isn’t that amazing?!!
So now we just need to do the part inside the yard. He saved us so many hours of work!
We have some wonderful neighbours. What a fantastic Christmas present, too!
My daughter was a sweetheart and willing to get out with our little snow blower to clear a few paths. I went out with her to control the extension cords, to make it easier.
I grabbed a quick photo of what I’d cleared around the cat shelters, earlier.
The plan is to use the cleared snow to make a wall on the south side, as a little extra shelter from the wind. Eventually, I want to clear as far as the well cover and the BBQ my brother gave us, but neither is essential right now.
We cleared a bit in front of the garage, though the focus right now was a walking path. You can see where the extension cord cut through the snow, which was very soft and fluffy, still. My job was to keep enough slack on the cord behind my daughter, so she wasn’t pulling it along as she used the snow blower – which can be done, but it sometimes gets caught or tangled on things – then clear it to one side as she worked her way back again.
We don’t need to do another meter reading until the middle of January, but we cleared a path to the pole, anyhow.
I ended up tromping through the snow with the cord in the process. :-D
With two 100 ft extension cords, my daughter was able to make a quick pass up the sidewalk to the house, too. It will need to be widened enough for my husband’s walker, eventually, but this will do for now!
By the time she was done, my daughter was plastered with snow. It didn’t matter which way she had the deflector blowing the snow, the wind still blew it back onto her!
To the right of where you see my daughter in the photo is where we will need to clear enough snow to drive up to the house. Including the area needed to turn and reverse, there is a lot of space that needs clearing! For that, we can plug the extension cords into an outlet on the side of the house, instead of from the garage. We’ll still need to use both cords if we want to make a path around the house, but most of what we need to reach can be with just 100 ft of cord.
At some point, we should clear a path to the barn, too. We don’t go into there often, but it would still be nice to not have to slog through the snow to do it. :-)
Little by little, it’ll get done. I’m just thankful we don’t need to do it all at once. My poor brother and his wife, who live quite a bit south of us and would have gotten a lot more snow, don’t have that luxury. He was probably out clearing snow in the wee hours of the morning. At least they do have a very good gas powered snow blower!
I don’t expect our vandal will ever return the Bobcat he took, since he is convinced he owns it, but it sure would have made our job easier. I think that thing even had a heated cabin!
Our first blizzard of the season has passed us by. The weather system is still going, though. On the weather radar, I can see that a swath of the US, Ontario and Quebec are being hit as the storm makes its way to the East coast.
As I write this, we are at -22C/-7.6F, with a wind chill of -36C/-32.8F (I usually round the Fahrenheit down, but decided to include the decimals today. :-D ) Our high of the day is supposed to reach -19C/-2.2F with a wind chill of -30C/-22F Tomorrow is supposed to be a couple of degrees colder.
Then on Christmas day, we’re supposed to reach a high of -9C/15.8F with a wind chill of -14C/6.8F We’ll have these mild temperatures for a couple of days, then it’s supposed to drop around the -20C’s for a couple of days, before going back to mild temperatures in time for the new year.
It’s going to feel like spring.
The girls did some shoveling yesterday, so things wouldn’t accumulate too much as it continued to snow.
I was seeing this on the live feed from the security camera last night.
The storm came in from the west, but it was swirling so much, the winds in the image are actually coming from the east!
When one of my daughters had to take the bag of cat litter they cleaned out last night to the bin we have for it outside, she had to push the door open through a snow drift.
You can see signs of that, below.
This is how it was this morning.
You can almost see the path the girls shoveled down the sidewalk! :-D
They also shoveled in front of the cat shelters.
Do you see those icicles hanging from the cat house roof? You know what that means?
It’s warm in there! Warm enough to melt the snow from underneath.
I’m so glad that aquarium bulb is working out as a heater! It’s not enough to warm it up too much, either; too warm, and it will affect their ability to acclimatize to the winter and put them more at risk from the cold.
Some snow did get into the kibble house, unfortunately. We’ll have to clean that out later, when we’re doing more shoveling. This morning, I just did the minimum I needed to do to feed the critters.
The other water bowls were completely buried, but the heated water bowl was doing just fine!
You can see tracks in the background, between the two shelters. Those led to the storage house, so we know that some cats are still sheltering under there, too.
Once I cleared enough snow to give the cats fresh food and water, I continued clearing a path to the feeding station, where the smaller bird feeder is hanging. That will do for now. Eventually, we will need to dig paths to the compost pile, down the sidewalk and to the electricity meter, and to the garage. The girls had cleared all three doors of the garage, including where the snow blower is stored. I can see on the security camera that it isn’t completely filled it again. :-D
I was going to take pictures of the shoveling I did this morning, but I just wanted to get back inside! Plus, my glasses were frosted over and I couldn’t see. :-D
Aside from the paths, we will need to clear the driveway to the road, of course, but we will also need to clear into the yard, for when we need to drive up to the house. That has to include space for a turning radius. Plus, we will need to make paths around the house, so we can reach the septic tank, if needed, and it would be good to have a path to the fire pit, too. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take the big snow blower in to see why it won’t start and get it fixed. So all we’ve got is the little electric one. We do also have an “electric shovel” that my dad used to use. We used it our first winter here. So we won’t have to do all of it by hand, at least!
All that clearing does not have to be done right away. We are well stocked and don’t have to go anywhere, so it can wait until it warms up a bit.
The last couple of winters, our first blizzards were in October, so this one was very late in the season. It may be a lot more snow than we’ve had so far, but it’s actually not too bad. We still only got hit by the edges of the storm. The more severe parts of the storm moved across the Canada/US border, so the south of the provinces all got hit a lot harder. We are doing pretty good where we are. I’m also happy to have more snow in general. Having this stored water will be essential in the spring, for gardens and fields. Lots of snow with a nice, gradual spring melt, would be ideal conditions for planting in the spring, whether it’s farmers’ crops or garden beds. Our first two summers here were drought conditions. Last year, we had a wet spring, followed by a hot, dry summer, and that wet spring was enough to keep crops going through the heat later on.
We shall see what the rest of the season brings us. I’ve seen predictions for both severe cold and mild temperatures for this winter. So far, it’s looking like the mild prediction is the one that’s panning out.
Until then, we’ll enjoy our Christmas while snowed in, all warm and cozy!
Including the outside kitties. :-) Relatively speaking!
I hope anyone reading this that got hit by this storm, too, is also safe, warm and well!
If all had gone to plan for today, I would be just arriving at my mother’s right now, to help her with her grocery shopping.
This morning, things were looking just fine out.
Some of the cats still didn’t want to go out in the relatively warm temperatures! :-D
Switching out the memory card on the new camera was a problem this morning. I had my little bowl under it and pushed the micro SD card in to unlatch it, but it didn’t pop out. I tried several times, eventually getting it looser, but I still couldn’t get the card out. It has a little ridge at the end for taking it out of card reader adapter, but even pulling on that with a fingernail was not getting it loose. It did eventually come out, dropped into the waiting bowl I was holding under it…
Then bounced out, and fell into the snow.
*sigh*
I put the replacement card in, then went hunting. Thankfully, the snow was really soft under the camera, and I could see a little slot in the snow were the memory card sliced through. I scooped a handful around where it fell, but still couldn’t find it. The snow was so soft, it fell even deeper! So I had to very carefully dig around in the snow, and I did find it.
I then had to make sure it got good and dry before using it!
I also have to come up with something better to catch the memory card, that I can also fit in my pocket. Ideally, I’d have a little tray attached to the post, under the camera. Figuring out how to rig one of those up would probably be better.
It’s a good thing we’re not actually trying to hide the camera or anything like that! LOL
There has got to be a better way to do this, though. :-/
When I finally tried to upload the files, however, I realized I’d forgotten something important.
I hadn’t formatted the second card. There was nothing on it.
When setting up the camera with the first card, I was able to format it right in the trail cam. When I switched cards yesterday, I wasn’t able to get the screen working (likely due to the cold), and I forgot completely about it needing to be formatted before use.
So there’s a day or recordings, lost! I even saw our vandal going by on his quad, in files on the other camera, turning around near our driveway. It did look like he was just turning around, not stopping or doing anything nefarious, but I really would have liked to have had the different view of him.
We shall see how things work tomorrow.
That’s if I switch out the cards tomorrow. I might skip a day, with the weather we’re having right now.
On seeing that it looked like the storm was actually going to hit us, and fairly soon, I called my mother to see if she was up to doing her shopping earlier. She was, thankfully. She had other places she wanted to go to as well, so we picked up the groceries last. Unfortunately, there was a line up outside the store, which she had never seen before! With the restrictions on how many people can be in the store, they had someone outside (poor kid was NOT dressed for the weather!), counting people. He was a sweetheart and got a cart for me that I could bring to my mother so she could use it as a walker. Thankfully, the line was moving fast, so my 89 yr old mother with her damaged knee didn’t have to stand outside in the cold for very long!
I’m rather incensed about that. Not only have there been no cases of Covid traced to retail outlets in our province, there are none at all in her town.
The storm reached her town while we were in the grocery store. I was able to bring her groceries to her apartment, at least (her building is locked down, but it turns out they do allow deliveries). I wasn’t able to stay and put her groceries away for her, like I usually do. I didn’t want to get her in trouble with the abusive caretakers. Things didn’t look too bad in town, but once I reached the highway, I could see the storm had reached town. I actually drove out of it on the way home, but in the last couple of miles to the farm, I could actually see the storm coming in from the west. Not longer after I got home, my mother phoned to say how glad she was that we did her shopping earlier, because it was really blowing hard around her building! By then, we were getting fairly heavy snow, but not the winds. As I write this, the snow has actually let up a bit. The south of the province is getting the blizzard warnings. It’s a large system, but we may be far enough north to get just the edges of it.
The good thing is, we are well stocked and, now that my mother is also well stocked, we don’t have to go anywhere for some time. We could probably hunker down until after New Year’s, if we needed to. Not that I expect to need to. The storm should pass by tomorrow, and we’re supposed to get a couple of cold days, and then its supposed to get mild again. And by “mild”, I mean around the -10C/14F range.
About the only thing that is going to be an issue is our internet connection. Which we just lost, so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to publish this post! Oh, it’s back again!
Better publish this while I can! My apologies for any typos I’ve missed. :-D
I was feeling lazy today, and wanted to make something quick and easy for supper, to go with the meatloaf I had in the oven.
I decided to make kluski. Well. I suppose the proper name for them is kluski kladzione, since kluski is a generic Polish word for all kinds of dumpling type things.
These work up really quick, so start a large pot of salted water going, have a slotted spoon handy, and place a colander over a bowl nearby.
I finished mixing the dough well before the water reached a rolling boil.
The recipe is simple. Three cups flour, three eggs, a bit of salt… (the recipe in the link above uses only two eggs, but I followed the quantities I got from a video I found, so things can be flexible)
… and enough water to make it a batter-like dough.
I use a little over a cup of water to get it to this consistency. It just needs to reach a consistency that’s almost something you can pour.
I mixed by hand, but an electric mixer can be used. I just didn’t feel liking something else to wash. I just kept beating it by hand until the water was ready.
Traditionally, the drop noodles are made by putting some of the dough onto a plate, then scraping pieces off into the water when it reaches a roiling boil. Or, they can be dropped directly into a soup.
I didn’t want to wash a plate, either. I’d used an 8 cup measuring cup to mix the dough, so I just scraped small spoonfuls over the edge of the bowl, instead of the edge of a plate.
They cook up very quickly, too. The pieces I scooped out were pretty small, so they were done very soon after they all started floating on the top. I just gently stirred after dropping them in, to make sure none were stuck to the bottom.
Once a batch was done (I did it in three batches), I used the slotted spoon to scoop them into the colander to drain.
They can be eaten right away at this point, just tossed with a bit of butter and seasonings. I decided to keep following the video I found, though. This next part isn’t necessary, but the video I watched did it, so I gave it a try this time, too.
I took the colander over to the sink and rinsed them with cold water.
They were then dumped into a hot pan with generous amounts of melted butter.
After frying for a minute or so, they were done and ready to serve!
Except my meatloaf wasn’t even done yet.
The resulting little dumplings have a soft, toothsome texture to them, and taste wonderful. I found I didn’t even need to add more seasons. Just the butter it was fried in was enough! Unfortunately, my meatloaf did not turn out all that well, but at least I had delicious kluski!
This is the video I found, when confirming my quantities to make these. I think Grandma Lipinski is adorable!
I was quite looking forward to seeing how the new camera worked after it’s first night. We got a few centimeters of snow last night, and it was blowing quite a bit – I had 400 images of snow from the garage camera in my email this morning, and I’d already deleted about 300 before going to bed! So I did have some concerns that I’d have hundreds of stills and video of snow.
I did see one potential problem before even opening it. The camera is water tight, but snow accumulated on the top. Even brushing it off, it does mean moisture can potentially get into the camera when it’s opened. That is one benefit the old cameras, with their bottom latch, had over the side swing design.
I brought along a small, disposable bowl as a safety catcher for the micro SD card. I’m glad I had it! I was able to prep the new card from it’s little case, so I could quickly and easily switch cards, and have it waiting in the bowl. The card in the camera was easy enough to get out – it just needs to be pushed in and it will unlatch, as is typical. I then let it fall into the bowl rather than try and pull it out with my fingers. There is not a lot of space for fingers to grab the card. I do like the micro SD, but this is another thing that I would consider as better with the older cameras, because I am switching cards out daily.
As I suspected, putting the new card in is going to be an issue. It needs to be pushed in far enough to latch, but getting it to that point is not as easy. Just using a thumb for finger isn’t good enough. It has to be pressed in with a fingernail. Awkward to do while holding a bowl, and the camera itself wiggles. Until it catches, the memory card is pretty loose, and it would be way too easy for it to fall out – and it that little thing falls into the snow, the chances of finding it are very low! It would be much better if the slot were on the side, instead of the bottom.
Once it was in, I tried to check the preview screen, as it was just black. It doesn’t “wake up” when the memory card is taken out, like the old camera’s did. I put it on set-up and the screen came live, but it didn’t even show the little start-up image. The screen was basically white, with a greyish bar across. I hit the menu button, and I could see text trying to show up in the grey area, but nothing readable. I figure the screen was not handling the cold very well.
Which did not bode well.
Once I started uploading files to the computer, however, I was encouraged. It’s set to take 3 still images, then a 10 second video, which means 4 files for every time the motion sensor gets triggered. There were a lot more files than just me fiddling with the set up.
I have it set to maximum quality for both stills and video, and I must say, I was really impressed! Here is the second of the three still shots it took of my brother’s dog, coming to visit.
The files are so large, I reduced this image to 25% of original, just to keep the file size down!
It was rather jarring to see such high quality images of my own face as I fiddled with the camera position. It turns out I make some rather strange expressions while concentrating… :-D
With the old camera, the gate barely fit in the frame, so this wide angle is awesome. More importantly, the motion sensor has a wider range, too. It caught one of the cats going by at the far end of the gate. With the old camera, it wouldn’t have even been in frame, never mind picked up by the motion sensor!
Also, I love the information bar across the bottom. It even includes temperature! Which was funny to watch as I went through the files. It started at 14C, still warm from the house. By the last file, it was at -17C!
It’s also much more readable. The old camera included time, date, file number and moon phase icon, all crammed into the bottom right of the image.
The processing speed on this is much faster. With the old cameras, when set to video, there is a delay between when the motion sensor is triggered and when it starts recording video. For, say, a vehicle driving by at normal speeds, that would leave me with either the very tail end of the vehicle, or nothing but a cloud of dust or snow, settling on the road. When set to still shots, it’s faster, but not by much.
This thing is fast enough that it can get the burst of 3 stills at the beginning, and the vehicle is still picked up in the short video. And not just the tail end, either. I’m very impressed.
As for night shots, it also seems to be smart enough to know not to turn on for snow! The other trail cam had a couple of videos triggered by snow. The new camera had none at all. There was one series of files taken when it was dark enough for the infrared flash, triggered by a vehicle, and that was the closest thing to night shots we got.
I am really happy with this camera so far! We shall see how it handles the upcoming weather, though. A storm is predicted to hit us tomorrow, and by Wednesday, we’re supposed to get 30-45cm (11 – 17 inches) of snow! January and February are our coldest months, so that’s when it’s really going to be tested.
At this point, however, my husband and I are already talking about getting more of these. They are inexpensive, and it would be really good to have cameras in other areas of concern.
I have been really looking forward to this new trail camera!
This brand is not available in any of our local stores. The ones I’ve seen are pretty much the same design, if not the brand, of what we already had. I was perfectly willing to go with the same brand to replace the old camera which, after 2 years of constant use, has become finicky. I’ll talk about the features that convinced me to choose this camera, but ultimately, there were two things that really convinced me to get this one. The first was watching the video review, and the reviewer commented on how little battery power it uses. That is a big one, since I have found our current cameras – especially the older one – just suck through batteries. Especially in colder temperatures.
The other thing was the price. This camera uses micro SD, so I had to buy those (I got three 32 gig micro SD cards, though I only needed two), but the total still came out to just under CDN$90. The cameras we have now, which were bought for us by my wonderful brother, cost far more. He was able to get them on sale, as they are older models, so that helped, but if I were to get a new model of what we have now, we’d be paying anywhere from $150-$250 in the stores.
For us, we are using the trail cams as security cameras, so that is what we kept in mind when it came to the features that were most useful.
Let’s take a look at what’s in the box.
Along with the camera itself, there is a USB cable that allows you to hook it right up to your computer. There is the hardware to set up a permanent mount, or an alternate strap. For now, we will be using the strap, though the mount would be much more convenient. The camera will be mounted on a fence post, and we plant to take that fence out at some point. Once that’s done, we’ll have access to trees that will be much better to mount it on. It might be a couple of years before we get to that point, though!
There was also an instruction manual. I just hadn’t found it yet, when I took the picture! :-D
Here is one of the design features I like. It opens like a book. The side latches are easy to open and close, and you can even attach a very small lock, if needed. The seal is waterproof, which is essential for this design. Our other cameras open from the bottom and, while it is very quick to change out the memory cards, it becomes an issue when the batteries need to be changed.
With this design, the batteries can be changed without having to take the camera down. With our old cameras, the batteries are changed from below. Once the cover is popped open, they fall right out, but you can’t get fresh ones in without moving it.
The batteries were more trouble to put in than I expected, though. The springs seem a bit delicate, and move quite a lot. Hopefully, that will not be an issue. I won’t find out if it is, until it’s time to change them.
At the base under the batter case is the 1/4″ tripod thread for the mount. The DC connection is something I’m quite thrilled to see. If this camera works out, we might want to invest in a solar panel kit, which would plug in here, and not have to change batteries at all!
At the based of the cover half, there is the slot for the micro SD card. That was surprisingly hard to get in until it clicked in place. Switching memory cards is something I see as a potential problem. It is so tiny, and if I drop it, finding it again it going to be a challenge!! I will have to get into the habit of carrying something I can hold under the camera to catch anything that slips out of my clumsy fingers! :-)
There is an AV jack, the USB cable port, and the power switch.
The older cameras have small digital display for set up, but this one has a small screen and a mini computer, really. You can preview files, as well as use the camera as a manual camera.
The settings are another area with additional features that are important for our needs. Both our older cameras can do still shots or video. This one can do that, plus be set to do a burst of up to 3 still, then take a short video. I have it set to take 3 stills, then video. The length of video is also more flexible. Our older camera took videos at 30 seconds long , the newer one could go down to 15 seconds. We could set them for longer, but not shorter. Which is okay, except that when the motion sensor gets triggered by a car going by too fast for the camera to actually catch, we’re left with videos of dust or snow settling to the ground.
It’s the delay between shots that is going to make a huge difference. In the other cameras, the shortest delay is 15 seconds. A lot can happen in 15 seconds. Particularly when you’re recording someone vandalizing a gate. :-( The best I was able to set them at was 15 seconds of video (or 30, on the older camera), followed by a delay of 15 seconds. Even when doing stills, there’s that 15 second gap between shots.
This camera’s delay can be set as short as 5 seconds!
I now have it set to take 3 stills, followed by 10 seconds of video, with a 5 second delay.
There are a lot of other setting options as well. Photo and video qualities have quite a large range (I have those set to best quality for now). Motion sensor sensitivity can be adjusted for high, low and medium. I’ve left it at medium.
Oh, and while going through the settings, there is the most annoying beeping sound.
That can be shut off!
It can even be set to take time lapse photos, or to take recordings within a set time only, as well as being able to record audio. It can also be password protected.
Once I got the settings to where I wanted, it was time to attach the strap.
It has a simple locking buckle to hold it in place. The newer of our other cameras has a strap as well, and the locking buckle on that is of higher quality than this one. I don’t expect to be undoing it often, so that should not be an issue.
Finally, it was time to set it up.
Here is the old camera on the left. If you look at the bottom, right corner of the camera, you can see the latch to open the bottom. When the memory card is removed, the display screen turns on automatically, while the control buttons are protected inside.
This older camera came with a pair of elastic cords to attach it. It used to be on a tree, which was just small enough for the cords to wrap around. I like how easy the elastic cords are, for taking it on and off, but they limit what it can be attached to. On this fence post, they had to be wrapped extra around the post an to get it snug. The straps are more flexible as far as the size of what you can wrap it around, but it’s more of a pain to get in place. So there’s a trade off, there.
The camouflage pattern on the new camera is… not very camo. :-D
One of the other features on this camera is the “setup” mode. The power switch has “on”, “set up” and “off” positions. When it set up mode, lights flash when the motion sensor is triggered, so I could walk back and forth at the gate, and see exactly when and, more importantly, where I was triggering the sensor. Once it was set, I could open it up again and switch it from “set up” to “on.”
This camera has a wide angle lens (the camera it is replacing does not, but the newer one does) and the motion senor is also wide angle. This is important to me. With having two cameras on the gate, I was able to see just how much one camera or the other was missing, simply because the motion sensors weren’t being triggered in time. I think this one is going to be a solution to that problem.
After using the set up function to position the camera, I set it to the “on” position and left it. Tomorrow, we shall see what we got!
Besides me walking around and fussing with the camera. ;-)
The down side is, once it’s been set to “on”, there is nothing to tell me if the camera is actually working. With the older cameras, after switching the cards, I would make a point of triggering the motion sensor, so make sure they were working. I could tell, because there is a small red light, just to the left of the motion sensor in the photo, that would blink. A few blinks for a still short, or continued blinking for the duration of a video. They also made a quiet shutter-type noise. This camera is completely silent. It’s also too bright for the infrared flash to turn on, so I don’t even have that to go by.
Since there is nothing to tell me it’s doing anything, a part of me can’t help but think it’s not actually on.
I had actually checked the tracking status last night, and was surprised to see it listed as delivered.
In the city.
It wasn’t visible from the security camera live feed, because…
… camouflage! :-D
At least the UPS driver found us! :-D Checking the trail cam video later, I saw him pull in, dash out the side of the van, slide the box under the gate, and dash off again.
So… among our projects for the summer is to build a person gate on the side of the main gate, and set up a box for deliveries. :-)
This is our new trail camera, to replace the one that’s gone funky and isn’t recording anything. It’s still trying to work – on some of the night videos on the other camera, I could see that the infrared flash was triggered, but there was nothing on the disk. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t
The new camera is up now, and I’ll be doing an unboxing post, next. :-)
The Re-Farmer 