Cheapy Wildlife Trail Cameras

Alisonfd

Alisonfd

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Alison
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I am looking at buying a few cheap wildlife trail cameras. I want cheap ones because of the worry that someone might pinch or damage them as they will be left in a location which is over 30 minutes from my house. I need 3 to 4 of them, and budget wise its about £200.

I was wondering if anyone with experience had any recommendations?
 
I've got one of those. I was using it to try to identify which moggie was making a nuisance of itself and got a badger instead.
I would say that it's great in daylight but the IR illumination is not very even.
 
Thanks for the suggestions.

The Acorn one does look good, if I was using it somewhere close by I'd grab that but I'm worried someone might damage or steal it.

I'll check out the Aldi one, but I do need something which would be alright for the night time.
 
This is roughly the top l/h quarter of the frame. You can see the beastie is out of the centre of illumination but still visible. You haven't said what you're trying to achieve so only you can judge whether it's good enough.

badger.png
 
Thanks for the pointer but this device is too dumb to be affected.
 
If your into tinkering, then the following would work well:

raspberry pi zero £4 (new model has camera connector)
pi noir can (sony sensor) £22
IR LEDS + battery £15
USB battery pack to power £15
UV filter - go pro clone off ebay £4
pir sensor £5ish

bit like this but with a newer pi zero (cheaper and very low power requirments)
http://www.afraidofsunlight.co.uk/weather/index.php?page=trailcam

I put all this lot into an electrical enclosure box and sorted. very cheap but does need some tinkering!

I can post more info if your interested,
 
terrific said:
If your into tinkering, then the following would work well:

raspberry pi zero £4 (new model has camera connector)
pi noir can (sony sensor) £22
IR LEDS + battery £15
USB battery pack to power £15
UV filter - go pro clone off ebay £4
pir sensor £5ish

bit like this but with a newer pi zero (cheaper and very low power requirments)
http://www.afraidofsunlight.co.uk/weather/index.php?page=trailcam

I put all this lot into an electrical enclosure box and sorted. very cheap but does need some tinkering!

I can post more info if your interested,
Click to expand...


What an interesting project, I would welcome knowing fuller details.......making such a device would be taking me back decades to when I made my own vhf TV aerial pre amp and others like a slow scan TV receiver.
 
OK, will take some photos tomorrow and post them up.
It's not tricky to make up the box, the parts are cheap and its fun!

I have mine set-up to start capturing as soon as it boots, so plug in power and its away until the battery dies. Bit of camo tape to disguise job done.
Plenty to mess with with programming too, good project to learn some python (that's exactly what i've been doing). I great thing about the raspberry pi is the community around it, great forum and very knowledgeable people.

All achievable but does require some tinkering and patience but it's worth it (I'm not fully happy with the software on mine so still a work in progress).

This is another Pi time lapse project - I've used this software too with another pi and it works great
http://www.fotosyn.com/blog/simple-timelapse-camera-using-raspberry-pi-and-a-coffee-tin

(he has also created a great iphone/ipad cam viewer too : http://www.fotosyn.com/blog/berrycam-express-is-now-available )

I've got one of these too for sticking a pi in a window for timelapses - the pdf on the product page details the process.
https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-zero/products/zeroview?variant=20075799812

Hope that's useful,
 
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oo building one does look fun. I'm going to check out the cost of parts from China to see if ti can bring the cost down a bit.
 
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