Trail Camera Placement That Works With John Nicholson

Trail cameras feel simple until you realize how many animals can walk right past them without ever showing up on your card. We sit down again with John Nicholson from Trail Camera Adventures and get into the details that separate “random luck” from consistent trail camera success, whether you’re chasing blacktail and elk or just trying to capture better wildlife video.

We talk honestly about mounting height and why “put it high so it won’t get stolen” can quietly cost you photos, especially of smaller animals and sleek moving cats. John explains why he often prefers a lower, more natural eye-level perspective for better footage, while we compare that with the practical six to seven foot setups many hunters use. We also cover the unglamorous stuff that ruins otherwise perfect locations, like ferns and branches growing into the frame months later, plus why sun direction rules can matter a lot less in cloudy Pacific Northwest conditions.

Then we get technical in the best way: PIR sensors, heat plus motion, and why the classic mistake of aiming straight down the trail can lead to tracks everywhere and zero captures. We break down smarter angles, field of view, trigger behavior, sleep mode delays, and how time-lapse scouting can help you map animal movement across clearcuts when normal triggering can’t reach. If you’ve ever had a “runaway” camera fill a card with rain photos, you’ll feel seen.

Subscribe for the next part, share this with a hunting buddy who keeps missing deer on camera, and leave a review with your go-to trail camera setup or your biggest trail cam fail.

Transcript

Welcome Back And Trail Cam Focus

Why Camera Height Changes Everything

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast. I'm Aaron. And I'm Dave. All right, this week we're back again with John Nicholson from Trail Camera Adventures on YouTube and gonna continue our conversation about trail cameras. So we left off last week, finished up the SD card and the battery discussion. So this week I want to talk about how we can best position them in our sets. Or if we're doing for wildlife capture, how do you position them or what's a good idea for positioning them so that we're getting the best possible and the most pictures, nothing's slipping by? How do you do it? And yeah, let's have that discussion.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

This is a great discussion. This really is because I've changed over the years. I definitely have. Today, I position my cameras for the very best videographic effect because my audience is the overall nature audience. I want to see something at their level, the animal's eye level, and I don't want anything to slip by. Almost all of my cameras, which is 75-ish. We'll just use that number, are a few feet off the ground, meaning I'll go on a knee, two, three feet, about three to four feet.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

I'll go on a knee and I'll put it right in. And there's several reasons I do that. The first reason is because of the effect when because I'm editing these videos, and I'm probably right in the middle of whether whatever kind of animal it is. The primary reason I started moving down because I went through the years that oh, you got to move them up. There's more people in the woods, and cameras are getting stolen, and you don't want to lose a camera, so you got to put it up high. And I did that, just taking climbing sticks and ladders and doing all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

You took to the extreme there.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Oh, yeah, I was.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

I took a tree to the top of the tree.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

I was when I was using salt and the game blocks for the elk, you didn't want it down at that level because it's just a matter of time. The herd elk's gonna come over and just beat it up. They just like doing that. So I was going high, just that matriarch wouldn't get up there and get them and point it down. I also noticed at that time I wasn't getting as many smaller animals, I wasn't getting the bears and stuff that would go, and bears are a lot of them are bigger, but I wasn't getting them. I was just getting elk. I'm like, man, there's something to this, even though it's pointed down in that area. I should be getting more bobcats, for example. I should be getting those. And when you watch the bobcats, they're always moving slinky. And I don't get it. If you're up high, you're gonna miss so much. Yeah, and I have proven that.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Let because I kind of want to define, like when you say getting up high, yeah, are you talking like 10 to 15 feet high?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah, uh where the average hunter, okay. So you're worried about somebody coming in and seeing your camera. So that's the main thing guys are talking about. I don't want my camera stolen because I spent all this money on it. So they put it up high and aim it downwards, okay. And you're probably gonna get all the elk. Elk are elk out here, big as horses. So you're probably gonna get that. But there's a very good chance you're not gonna get anything else, and you're sure not gonna get those cats because it's weird that it won't trigger, but it won't.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

I wanted to actually clarify on this because when we're in the classes, we talk about putting them up high, because I think typically we're thinking putting them down low two, three feet, you know, a little bit below where you're talking about, the three or four foot. It is two or three feet, and that's typically where we put them. And when people are walking through, if they're looking to steal cameras, they're looking around there. But when we say put them up high, because we use the HME trail camera mount arms that screw into the tree, and but it's more like six or seven feet. Yeah, we're putting up up just high, and I've never had anybody I've had guys standing right underneath, and I've got the pictures of the back of their head as they're standing underneath those guns. That's not 10, 15 feet up, and I could see that's just even pulling your SD cards, that would be a pain in the butt to have to go out there with your sticks and climb up there. Whereas six, seven feet, that's just me reaching up and being able to swap out anything that I need to SD cards or batteries or something like that. And I've been successful with that six, seven feet, probably about six feet is where we're at. I've still gotten a lot of small animals.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

You have, yeah. You get the mice and the birds and stuff. And I've gotten that's a good trigger. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Birds, and these are the$25,$30 cheap non-cell cameras that I'm using. But rabbits, I've gotten everything. And deer, it's perfect for deer and everything like that. But it's just enough. Like I and we posted, I made Osha post on Instagram one time that bears suck at selfies because I've got pictures of just the eyeballs sticking up in the camera because they can just barely get up high enough to where their eyes are looking into the camera, but they can't actually really reach it as they're standing up.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

They would have never found that camera if it weren't for their nose. Their nose takes them right to that tree and then they go up. It's amazing to see that.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah, it's we're still using rubber gloves, latex gloves when we're handling cameras. No, they and it, but it might be just the plastic, the smell of plastic. That's a different smell than they're gonna encounter out in the woods. But I wanted to actually clarify that that when we're talking put them up high, it's more of the six, seven foot range as opposed to and probably about six foot, as opposed to ten, fifteen feet, which is just a little bit higher than where you're at. Okay. Because you and I had a when we were in payout, we had a really long discussion about this, yeah putting them up high. But having it's always good to clarify definitions, yeah. Okay, but go ahead.

Brush Growth And Sun Direction Myths

SPEAKER_01 6:17

No, I see what you're saying now. So that level is gonna be a little high for me because I'm not looking in an eyeball if it like a deer or an elk, but it's still gonna get you what you want as far the way you're describing it. Definitely gonna get you now. Going down low is really that's the most dangerous thing of all because the plants grow up and cover it. It really is. You have to. I'm I really pay attention to where I'm screwing in that spike or that holder, whatever it's called. The camera mount. The camera mount, yes. I'm not spiking trees.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah.

How PIR Sensors Really Trigger

SPEAKER_01 6:55

I because the ferns grow up and the branches come down, and I make a conscious effort of visualizing what the alders are gonna do in the next four to six months before I get back there. And then there's that, and then the other thing is the position. There's a lot of writing about what direct I have to have it in this direction because the way the sun rises and the sun sets. I did a whole video on this once. Oh, really? In Washington and Oregon, forget about it. Yeah, because we don't usually have the sun. Don't worry about that. Put it on the tree or rock or whatever that you think is the best for yours, and don't worry about it because it's probably gonna be cloudy, it's probably gonna be misty, it's probably not gonna be sunshine right in it. And even if it is you're talking about the northwest. Yeah. Are we talking about the same place? I said some sun today. Yeah, so don't worry about it. Get the best position. Now, we should talk about this, how cameras triggered, because even as much as I know about cameras, I don't understand sometimes why they don't. I've been to I got one artesian spring, which is a natural water that comes out that the animals like quite a bit. And there's sometimes I have about five cameras on that one now. But there was a time when I had three, and you walk up in tracks all around, or down in front of your camera, and especially when you only have one camera in tracks and you're all excited. Oh, look at that's a lion track, or that's a bear. I can't wait to see it. And then you open it up and you don't get it. You're like, what the heck happened for a while there. I really want to understand why cameras wouldn't trigger. What's wrong with our own cameras that we were making? Why didn't it do that? Uh-huh. And so I got a lesson. So these cameras they activate primarily off two things: you need motion and you need heat. Okay, and it's like the solar light that goes off on your garage when somebody's sneaking around, except there's a heat deal. PIR stands for passive infrared. And so, with passive infrared, when something walks through this zone, this field, and it has those two things, the camera activates. And the marketing on in the industry is our camera activates at 0.01 or 0.04 or 0.05 seconds, and everything you'll see is going to be incredible. It's like, how does anything get away? Yet you go to your camera and you see the tracks, and there's nothing on there. Ha, what happened? Don't know. Okay. Uh, and so this kept happening, and so I kept asking the questions this is happening, something's defective. What is going on? The way these are set up, ideally, an animal is supposed to walk left to right to left across the beam. That is the very best way to trigger everybody's camera. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Now, for me, that's not necessarily the best for me. I like something coming straight on and getting closer. Okay. And it was explained to me if something comes straight on, straight, straight, and it's slinky and now it goes sideways, that's when the camera may or may not trigger. I was like, how is that possible? Because I'm the kind of guy that tests it out. I used to walk real slow and go straight and then go sideways. And there is something to that. There really is something to that. So if a person is trying to get absolutely everything that goes by, you may be conscious of left to right on the trail. And if you put it on a tree, that the trail is coming right towards it, and the animal is coming right. You watch your videos. Of course, you got to have video to even know this, and it's coming right at you. Some of those don't trigger until they're very close. Okay. What I want to have happen ideally is at the farthest point out there, my camera triggers, and I see the animal coming at it, and it comes at it and right and goes around it. Well, they don't operate ideally best that way. It's hard for me to get my head around why they don't, but they don't.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

That's a reality. So it's funny you're saying this, John, because instantly I'm thinking of an occasion where I had got and I had put the camera running straight down the trail. Yeah. Okay. So the trail was going right by the camera, and I was facing one direction, and I got a picture of one shooter buck. And I put that camera there, and I would go there and I would see tracks on that trail, but I would only I only got one picture of that buck, and I would see his tracks every time. Drives you crazy, doesn't it? Yeah, and it's that explains what was happening. He was just he was just staying on the trail. I needed to get off that trail and get either like an like a 45 or a 90 degree to get him to walk through that beam. And now I'm thinking not only get off the trail, but you want to be back a little bit so that field of view.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

That's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Field of view as far as the beam is wider so that you're gonna pick him up sooner and he's gonna stay in the picture longer.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Great comments.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

But yeah, and this was a dandy buck too. I'm telling I'm thinking now I gotta go back. Yeah, because that's what was going on. Yeah, that buck is still there.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

And I'm thinking I'm doing the same thing as you're talking. I'm thinking of the scenarios in my sets, and I've never really had any, I've never had any problem with picking up everything that's coming in, but mine have always been, I've never done that straight on with my cameras. It's always been at least a 45 degree angle. And I'm thinking of one where they're coming up from the left and they'll cross in front of it, but still moving at about a 45-degree angle from behind it, walking in front of it, or off to the side. And even when I was monitoring the skitter road one time, I was still off to the side, about a 45, and I got actually got some of the best pictures I've ever gotten just being at that angle. And the only cougar picks I ever got were on that. And I got three really nice cougar picks on that one particular camera. But yeah, mine have never been, I've never been frustrated, like what the heck's going on. So there's been other things that have been frustrating, but with not the animals. But I think it's because I've never put anything straight on.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

There's something about the way cougars and bobcats move uh that it's very I've got them, it's very difficult to get them coming straight on. I've got a few, but it's difficult. They're almost always starting in the frame, in the middle of the frame. Now, how in the world, why in the world did that camera decide to trigger on that 175-pound Tom Cougar when it was in the middle of the frame? When every other deer and elk that came in, it triggered immediately. It's about the way they move. And then that's also the reason we're gonna go back to this a second. I keep it lower. There's a better chance of it triggering on those than higher.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Yeah, I would think also picking up the leg movement. That's probably more movement. The gate down lower.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

The gate, like you were saying, a cat s it's sleek, it sneaks. Whereas a when a deer walks, it doesn't walk like a human where we go heel to toe and our foot glides just above the ground, whereas a deer picks it straight up, moves it out, and then drops it straight down. So there's a lot of movement in that. And then if you look at the gait of a cat, it's all contained inside the shoulders. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's just all nice and tight and everything like that. This is eye-opening. This is stuff I tell guys at seminars about scents and how they're not all created equal. And we talked a little bit about that before. And how I have the opportunity to go into the sit down with Tinks and listen to them explain their scents and why they made them and for what part of the rut and what phase and all this. And but you don't hear guys doing that with cameras. No, nobody this is the first I've ever heard, but it makes total sense the way you're explaining it. That yeah. It's only because I'm obsessed with these things. But it's that's great information because a lot of guys are like, I want to get as much footage of that, whatever target that I'm going for, animal, as I can. So you face it down the trail thinking that you're gonna get him coming and going, and it's gonna be frame after frame. And the reality is it's the worst. Yeah. I get I got one picture, one picture of that shooter buck, and it wasn't until he was like two or three feet from the camera.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

The real answer to this, the best answer to this is more cameras. That's probably it sounds like I worked for a camera company, but it it really is. It's more and then you load up in that area, and you're probably not gonna blow the animal out if you're careful, but more cameras.

Missed Bucks And Runaway Photo Storms

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Now I had some, and I'll ask about this. I had one facing, and they were it was facing into my set, but then I wanted to catch any animals that were coming off of because I was maybe 10 yards off of a pretty major game trail going by where my hunt my kill spot was for my set for hunting. Now I had go down to that main game trail, I had my camera one camera pointed towards that, one pointed towards my set, thinking, okay, I'm gonna get stuff walking by. I never got anything walking by. And then once when I were their tracks? Oh yeah. Yeah, it never triggered. And it never triggered. And so now, granted, inexpensive cameras, but I would think 30 feet, it would have picked something up. But that one, I don't know what happened, but it was the one that was filled with ice that I had mentioned at which I don't know if I mentioned it during the episode or while we were talking off air, but it was during the atmospheric rivers. The rain triggered that. I had 21,000 pictures runaways.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

It's been a long time since we've had runaways, but that's oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

And you just get to the point of I don't care if there's an animal on here. I'm not going through all these pictures, and I just deleted all of them because I just got frustrated after 21,000 pictures.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

It was a pretty good size gig. It was a 32 gig. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

And it was the one time I actually had a non-cell camera. Yeah, the batteries died on it, or they were yeah, they actually died, or else I probably would have had more. The only yeah, it was torturous and it was catching lots of rain. There wasn't any brush in front of it, so it wasn't catching wind movement or anything, but it just is that do they just like you say runaway?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Runaways. So in the old days, you might remember this, Dave. The worst runaways, it's not that the worst runaways is when we were putting 35 millimeter film cameras inside these boxes, and you have a runaway then, and now you're it's worthless. Now you gotta go pay to have it developed to find out it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Disposable cameras that you did put in those. Yeah, yeah, I remember those. That was back in the infancy. Uh and it's funny because you before you started going through all this, I've forgotten all about half these cameras because I've hunted with all of them. Yeah. But to see where it starts, where it started and what it has come to now is in it's impressive. It really is in such a short amount of time. It's like laser rangefinders. I remember when they first came out, and what we used to do as far as rangefinders before, the little ones that were blurry and you had to get it dialed in and so everything was crystal clear. And even then it was at least five yards off.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Hunter specialties. I had one of those little ones too. Yeah.

Tech Progress And Cell Cam Impatience

SPEAKER_00 19:04

And to see where the industry has come and certain parts of it, trigger speed and white lights, red lights, black lights, all of that stuff that has progressed to where we are now has really been impressive. But there's pros and cons to everything. And I think I like the cell camera, it's great, but I think that it feeds, I think that it feeds a part, as far as the hunting aspect goes, I think it feeds a part of the impatience in everybody because it's instant gratification. And you get guys that they're I need to get a bigger antenna or some kind of booster or whatever to get it to me and everything. And I always like part of the joy, like you talk about going out and pulling SD cards and just that excitement like Christmas morn and racing home to put it on the computer or having that tablet in your rig where you can sit there and look at it and go through them and say, Oh, there's one. We've kind of lost that with the cell cam.

unknown 19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Just because, like I said, it's instantaneous, it's real time, and you're like, you're spoiled. You really are. And it takes a little bit of the hunt away. For me personally, it takes a little bit of the hunt away.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

You can you even make it home without looking at I have a card reader.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Oh, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

I was like, no, I have to look at some of them.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

It plugs into my iPhone. I sit down, and after I've pulled the last one, if I'm doing multiple sets, I can hold out till I've done the last set, and then I'm plugging in those SD cards and looking at them in my car and sitting there for a half an hour. Do I have anything? Do I have anything walking by?

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Oh, I'm just sending, I'm sending pictures and pictures of partial videos to my buddies. Oh, you're not gonna believe this. Oh, look, oh, this cat was in there two minutes after we left. Can you believe that? Stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

It's usually I'm yeah, I'm trying to get a couple of times I've got because I'm up by Riderwood where and I'm up where there's no cell service, but I'll drive down to Riderwood. Yeah. Because I like driving around because there's all kinds of deer running around in Riderwood down in that town. But because then I have a sell signal, I'll start sending Dave and other people some pictures. Oh, hey, look what just walked through, or the cats or the bears, or yeah, different stuff like that. Do different cameras for how long of a shot that they can get, like some of them do they go out to 10 yards? Are there some that go 20 yards? If you spend more, are you getting not only a better quality picture, but are you getting where you're a longer picture from a longer ways away? Are they picking up movement from a longer ways away?

SPEAKER_01 21:33

That's a good question. And the real answer to that is what's your application? It really is. It's it's what gun, what bullet, what optic do I need for what do you recommend? The real answer to that is what's your application? Yeah. Okay. Am I hunting on the the east side and I'm looking at one mountain to the other, or am I in the dark forest here in St. Helens and sneaking up on Blacktail? It changes dramatically. So the real answer to your question is first of all, when you set up, if you're setting up on a large field, and the only large fields that we have out here. We don't have giant food plots.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

No.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Okay. You could go to the cranberry. A very good friend of mine runs cameras on the cranberry bogs over at the coast. That's about the biggest plots that I can think of around. But we have clear cuts. We've got two and three year clear cuts. And if you want to know where the elk are coming out or the blacktail in the evenings at the final, and you want to put it up high, and just because you're starting on your journey trying to figure out this section, okay, you'll never get a trigger way over there, say 300 yards, by having it up high in this tree looking out over this two or three acre corner. So what you do, and what I have many times in the past, is you go into the time lapse menu and you go ahead and hit time lapse for every 15 minutes or 30 minutes, whatever you think is right for that area. And now it just continually takes a single picture every 15 or 30 minutes until you come back. And then in two weeks, you come back and you're like, nothing happened the first night. You get and you're gonna have to race through all these pictures. Yeah. Okay. And then the second night, oh, they're in the field. Okay. And then you see where they came out, and now you go over there and you're like, oh, son of a gun, there's that trail. I never saw it. Now you start, and that's hunting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Now you start working your way into it. Now you start putting cameras up there. So the time lapse function helps me find things in large clear cuts, openings, and stuff. What's even better for helping me find things are my bloodhounds. They tell me where all the animals go. That's a whole nother tool that I'm very lucky to have.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Yeah, Dave's been trying to train the Pomeranian, but he's not he's not cooperating.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

He's got it in him. I they all do. It's amazing if you watch dog behavior in the woods. What they will tell you. Those head, oh, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Watching them in the yard. He will zone in on where there's been an animal.

unknown 24:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Because the deer will bed down in Dave's flower beds at certain times of the year and in later spring here in a couple months. And he will go over there and yeah, immediately and start sniffing around. And then he's got to pee on everything. Okay, this is mine. Just to remind you all. So, are there settings that people can do if they want really good quality? And that is by a better camera. That's probably the quick answer.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

But well no, actually, no, that's you know what's interesting about quality of pictures?

SPEAKER_02 24:54

My night pictures, I really like those. It seems like the quality, the crispness of the is so much better than the daytime pictures, they're always fuzzy and they just don't look as good. But if I can get some dusk where it's black and white, or you can tell that it's just dark out, yeah, it ends up being really crisp, and I can start picking up like points on an animal, or you start picking up on the little scars that they might have, or something like that. But are there other if people want really good quality, whether it's for hunting or just for the nature pictures, what kind of settings? How are you setting yours up?

Picture Quality Settings That Matter

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Okay, we got right to it. Okay, so in the old days, when you had your setting, we you go into the menu, you scroll down all different ways, pushing buttons to scroll down to the settings, and you put it in, it'll give you that camera what setting you can put it in. In the old days, generally it was on the medium or low setting. And what you could do is put it on the highest resolution setting for pictures. The problem with that is when you're one to four gigs, now the most you could get is five to seven hundred pictures. This is back when I wanted two to five thousand pictures. So I started backing off on that. Okay, now the cameras improve. Now you can put in 32 gig, now you can change it to video, and now when you look at your settings, you're gonna have three or four different settings in both picture mode and video mode. There's probably half of our audience probably doesn't realize that there's two different modes in there, they're just going with it with the default, and in the video mode, more than likely, it was set up in a default as one of the lower or middle and not the highest video. The same thing on the picture mode, not necessarily the highest. When you go into nighttime, a lot of cameras now have a nighttime resolution, and there is either no choice or two choice, and that's in the higher one. So I'm guessing that the camera that you're referring to has not been adjusted in the picture daytime mode to the highest resolution. Yes, it's probably default mode, and default mode is a really good mode for almost all cameras that are coming out, but it's not the best mode, and it's certainly not the best if you're editing your pictures or videos like I am.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Honestly, I just consider it an accomplishment that it got the right date.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

I get it. Oh, I get it.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Okay, so I walked in and it said I was there at 4 17 p.m. Yeah, and I knew it was 10 a.m. So I've got to subtract six hours and 15 minutes. Yeah, I would have to do that. And two months and eight days, take that off of there so that I could get the right date.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah, because it doesn't, it didn't stay the way you said it, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Yeah, because I yeah, no, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

That's what we'll say.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

And then yeah, finally last year, I'm like, nope, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna actually program these. And to Aaron, we all do that. See, now I've got to figure out like the next step of programming them. I'll have to find the how-to.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

This is when it's easy. Back when I first get the first high dollar one, like I said, that three forever, it was so confusing. I couldn't get the dates right. I couldn't, and it was, yeah, it's easy now. They're a lot more user-friendly.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Tell you what, you get a six-pack of Dr. Pepper, and I'll sit down with every one of your trail cameras. And because I because I love that stuff. This is what you want. This is what you want. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

You mean Dr. Pepper? Dr. Pepper.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Oh, yeah. Almost all the cameras, even the inexpensive ones that are out there today, have really high resolution video and still pictures, and they're really awesome. You just probably have it in default mode. That's the only that's the only reason you're not getting better stuff. Okay. Or you want better.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

How are trigger speeds now? Okay, in comparison to what they used to be.

Trigger Speed And Sleep Mode Reality

SPEAKER_01 28:57

I kind of they're better overall, definitely better. But I almost wanted to jump in before when we were talking about trigger speed. Okay. Most cameras today, and I don't know that you're able to really read this anywhere. The the product development managers who talk to the sourcing agents that develop these electronics, they've told me about it. There is, in order to get longer battery longevity, okay, when the camera's not doing anything, is the best time for it to shut down and be in its lowest usage mode. Okay. So the first picture that comes out because a deer or a cat or whatever it is walked across takes a little bit of time because it comes out of, I forgot the term they use, it comes out of their low power, low volt mode. The next one that's right behind it, whether you have it set for multiple pictures or whether you have it set for every 30 seconds, is faster. So let's take an example, you got it in video mode and you have it set up perfect, and the animals and the trail say it's 15 yards out there and they're going left to right across the field. And so the whole system is at its optimum to trigger right away. If you set up your camera and you go out there and walk across because you were playing around with it and you turned it on, it's not in low power mode. The circuitry is not, so it's gonna trigger right away. Oh, you wait like this buck of yours that has been eluding your camera. You wait a nothing happens till nighttime. The buck comes across, it's it has to get out of that low power mode. That first picture, it's gonna take longer to activate the camera to take it and do whatever mode you have it in than the next one that comes right behind it, the next picture or the next video. So once it's up and running and they all have times on them, but you'll never find those in the instructions or whatever it is. So when we talk about trigger speed and you see these tests, like on YouTube, you can dive into this wormhole if you want. Who's the fastest? The only question I have is who's the fastest out of the box and they've all been triggered and it's on a high trigger mode, or who's the fastest that's been sitting there and nobody has come in front of it for the last two or three hours, and then they go in, and that's gonna be different. Everything that you buy today is gonna be superior than what we had five, six years ago. But there is a difference. There definitely is a difference.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Yeah, because I remember back in the day that was Cuddyback's claim to fame, is that they had the fastest trigger speed and and guys were switching over to that. And uh I think they really were actually too. You know, they were. They put out a good camera. Of course, there's a lot of good c cameras out there on the market if the cameras are taken care of properly. Yes. No, but that's interesting. I didn't think of it like a sleep mode versus versus versus an active, like you said, the second deer is gonna as soon as it gets into frame is gonna trigger it. Whereas the the first deer maybe halfway through the frame before it finally goes through its little startup and then takes the picture. So that's interesting. I did I never thought of it that way.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Part of the way that they increased trigger speed is the field of view for the trigger is wider than the field of view for the camera.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Remember, and remember some of them have lenses that are going off to the side. Okay, so it triggers it before it can even take a picture of it, so it has a chance to come out of sleep mode so that you can get it almost right away. It's never right away.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

So that would give you a faster trigger time.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, I see what you're saying. There's all sorts of it's not deceptive advertising, it's just the way it works. That's where we're at.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

That's actually smart thinking. It is trigger the camera as far as get it come out of sleep mode sooner before it walks into the field of vision of the lens. The lens, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

So it'll pick up movement, more movement off on its periphery. Okay. Yeah. Now, what kind of I would say, what's the angle that it's working at?

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Oh, well, then it's questions.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Yeah, yeah. Because now they have the 360 cameras, or they have cameras that that because Chris has one that will track or he can track his phone, he can track, so if a buck comes in, he can this is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

The app on his phone will alert him that there's been movement, kind of like what we were just talking about, and then he'll get a picture, and then he can go and with his phone, he can trick he can change it to video, but he can also turn the camera with his phone and follow that buck around.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Okay, I actually have one of those, and I use it in my chicken coop to see where the rats are coming out right now. I have a war with those. I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Prey is prey, whatever whatever you're going after.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

What's the angle of the I'm good?

Wide Detection Angles And Tracking Cams

SPEAKER_01 34:07

I would just feel the vision. Yeah, yeah, that's with the optics guy. That's uh I almost say that every day with my clients. I don't know. Certainly not 180, but that being said, we were just talking about trigger lenses, and with two lenses pointed out at angles, the activation or come out of sleep mode, or whatever technical term the industry uses for that, probably is 180. Okay, and then the field of vision that the picture or video lens is is probably it's I'm gonna look that up. It's probably 25 to 30 degrees, probably probably, but you know what? There's also settings in the camera and certain cameras I used to use, these food plot cameras that have a lens that's specifically a wider lens for that. So it all depends on the camera, the equipment, yeah, and the lens. Boy, now you're getting into my area of expertise. You can put a lens in there, and now you distort the animals depending on the distance and stuff because of the way the lens is, and then in order to get away from that, you put field flattening lenses behind that, so you take like a cut out of the earth and then you flatten it.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

That's a whole that fishbowl effect, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

So that's a whole wormhole that we probably don't want to go into.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Good question.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Well, you know what? We're at the end of uh episode two, and there's still a bit to talk about here. So I think we're gonna go into a third episode. And so if you could go on, subscribe, follow Hart, do all those things, that would be great. Check out our affiliate links down below. We work with some great companies, they have great products. But check out what they have for your hunts and after your hunts. That would be appreciated by them and by us. But until next week.