This camera has been around for some time and has had a degree of testing leading up to this release. Built on the same platform as the 560 camera it shares the same case with a different door. Our original sample even had the cut filter on the board and had a really bad filter clunk even though it was white flash. This was reported as a severe deficiency and was suppose to be corrected in the final product prior to release. Most every one now is familiar with the Scoutguard products that use the wired remote and this is the same and the programming is the same, so we will spend no time explaining that.
The popularity of the white flash seems to have gained another build up in popularity because of the color night pictures. This trade off where there are no night video capabilities appears to be alright with a lot of users. The market has been shy of cameras that actually capture decent pictures in the white flash category. Spy Point and Stealth do this well in white flash along with the old Leaf River cameras. This is an area that was somewhat weak in our original test camera. We will be taking a strong look at this along with all the other normal functions.
Trigger time is supposed to be less than 1.5 seconds and there is suppose to be very good battery life (80 days). This has been pretty well proven in all previous Scoutguard products built on this same platform. The small size and excellent camouflaged case will be hard to spot on the tree except for that big white strobe at the top. This camera can use up to 8 gigs of SD card so there should be plenty of room for a ton of 5 MP pictures and daytime videos.
I will get some pictures of this camera (like MOULTRIE A-30 GAME CAMERA ) and then off to the trigger testing and field testing areas.
11-13-2010 update: We set up to grab the first of the day/night /8 plate pictures and got a big hit right where it hurts. We were under the understanding that the cut mechanism would be de activated and we would just have a very first class little white flash camera. Well, that just did not happen. Even though the sample flash pictures were first class and the flash range was way down range there is still this problem for those who have the opposition to the clunk during the sensing to flash period. We just finished a review on a primitive system white flash camera costing a hundred dollars more and it failed to produce pictures and flash that was satisfactory. This camera seems to do pretty good in those departments but we are afraid that the noise will probably take away from its popularity. We do not understand why they failed to correct this issue in the post production units. Logged more time on this camera and it does give us some very respectable pictures but even during the day we get that constant series of clunks each trigger. This has just got to be fixed for any kind of field deployment. Sensing was out past 50 feet for this cool day.
11-23-2010 update: In the Scoutguard tradition this camera still is pumping out the pictures which the forum users seemed to feel are pretty good but are not in that 560 category yet. We have heard there may be a firmware adjustment in the works so we will wait and see. That action, along with the attention to the little noise maker will make a good camera great.
12-05-2010 update: This camera has clunked its way through another group of really good pictures so the battery life seems to still be holding. We will keep it out until the cells give out
01-23-2011 update: This camera is still ticking away in Scoutguard fashion. Our animal count is low due to hunting pressure but so far the camera has capture 243 photos since 11-20-2010. We will continue the battery testing for now. There are no reports of any updates to correct the clunking we hear with this camera. Numerous reports have been sent via HCO to BMC about the clunking as late as this past week at the Shot Show in Vegas. We will provide a final update when the batteries fail but we are closing this review now.
04-02-2011 update: Almost 4 months in one of our less busy areas but over 600 night pictures this camera is still going on its batteries. It is giving us some pretty good pictures also.
07-15-2011 update: The batteries finally died on this camera which has continued to run in its isolated area since 12/05/2010. The batteries finally went dead on 07/14/2011. The camera took 1800 photos over this duration which is VERY good with a white flash camera.
