Topic: Best Trail Cameras of 2023, Tested and Reviewed (Read 31 times)
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The Flex G-36 improves megapixels and performance over last year’s Flex without a price hike. It costs $100, which is $50 less than the similarly photo specced Tactacam Reveal X-Pro.
SpyPoint didn’t just give the new Flex G-36 a glossy veneer of three additional megapixels. It gave the trail cam a serious upgrade under the hood. Last year, the Flex only triggered at 10 and 60 feet. The Flex G-36 triggered at 10, 60, and 110 feet—day and night. It shot three photos of me in frame at each distance too.
The photos are crisp with no motion blur, and while the daytime photos are excellent, the night photos are the most impressive. The IR flash is even and reaches far into the night to produce high-detail photos after sunset.
The SpyPoint app is intuitive and easy to use. If you have hundreds of photos you can easily sift through them using the “buck” filter. I’ve used it on my other SpyPoint cameras and it’s not 100 percent accurate, but it’s a quick way to find peak deer activity times frames.
My one knock on the Flex G-36 is that it takes about a minute to reset between bursts of photos even though I had it set to no delay. In the walkthrough test, I walked from left to right and then right to left. The camera wasn’t capturing my second trip unless I waited about a minute between triggerings. That slight delay could cost you a photo of the second deer down the trail, which so often is the mature buck following a doe. But still, for $100 you can’t go wrong with the Flex G-36. —S.E.
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We all know that big bucks move most frequently at twilight and nighttime. Unfortunately, a lot of cameras on the market, especially the “no-glo” versions, produce crappy nighttime images. Instead of a clear picture of a shooter buck you end up with a blurry, ghost-like critter in the frame. Is it your target buck or a just another basket-rack?
This was not the case for Stealth Cam’s new Deceptor no-glo camera. This cell camera produced solid nighttime images at 10, 60, and 110 feet. That’s impressive considering the Deceptor’s advertised detection range is only 80 feet. The only other cameras we tested that were able to capture images at 110 feet were the Tactacam and the SpyPoint. For a sense of nighttime image quality, look at the 3D deer target (15 yards from the camera) and you’ll see tines clearly. No problem counting points in that image.
The images are even more impressive when you consider that the Deceptor is a no-glo camera, which means there are black filters over its red LED lights. Typically, no-glo cameras have a limited nighttime range and slow shutter speeds to co*pensate for less light hitting the subject (a slow shutter speed creates a blurry moving image). But that wasn’t a problem for the Deceptor in my walkthrough test. Even when I was walking at 60 feet, at the edge of the woods, the camera was able to capture me clearly.
The pros of a no-glo camera is that they don’t create a bright red flash while taking images at night. Some hunters argue that deer aren’t spooked by the red LED flash, others swear that the blacked out no-glo is the only way to go. When I walked by the camera at close range at night, there was no detectable noise or light to signal that the camera had fired. For hunters targeting mature bucks that might be skittish around trail cameras, this is an excellent option. The only downside to the Stealth Cam is that the reviews of their Stealth co*mand Pro app and customer service vary wildly. Many users report problems with cameras not connecting, or the app crashing (it has a 2.8 rating in the app store). While using last year’s model Stealth Cam I was unable to connect to the app and Stealth customer service was unable to fix my issue. Hopefully they’ve ironed out those issues so you’ll be able to easily access all the great images the Deceptor is going to capture. —A.R.
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I rave to anyone that will listen about these amazing “cheapies.” I’ve had over 50 Tascos in the field over the past 12 months and haven’t had one issue. The simplicity of this camera makes it fast and easy to set up. It has a one or three shot burst mode for photos, and multiple interval adjustments. The only downfall I’ve found is that the videos can be irregular in their length, which cuts off some activity.
I was truly shocked at the 50 feet of flash range for a budget trail camera around $50. In my walkthrough test it captured me in the center of the frame at 10 feet both day and night. It didn’t trigger at 60 or 100 feet. I operate almost all my Tascos on three shot bursts, and on several occasions they captured deer running in all three frames. For the price and performance, these are my personal choice for mapping properties and putting patterns together. —D.P.
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The Moultrie Mobile Edge wasn’t the strongest performer in our walkthrough testing, but it’s a functional, capable cell camera and costs only $100, which is impressive. What’s truly remarkable about this cellular trail camera is all of the features it brings to the table through its Moultrie Mobile app. The Edge automatically connects to the strongest network in the area (without requiring you to switch sim cards) and promptly sends photos to your phone. Here’s the cool part: The Moultrie Mobile app is designed with image recognition, so it identifies deer (including bucks vs. does), turkeys, vehicles, and humans in photos. From there, you can sort your photos based on a variety of filters to put together patterns of the deer in your area.
In the summer of 2022, I hung my test camera on a cornfield edge in a core area of our hunting property in Wisconsin. I ran the camera continuously all fall without issue. It consistently snapped photos of deer and captured me and my hunting buddy anytime we walked or drove by.
According to the app, the highest buck activity for this site was 6 a.m. (I looked through the photos manually to confirm that the app was correct, and it was). Besides time of day, the activity data also accounts for temperature and moon phase. If you’re a serious deer hunter, I’m sure you already see the incredible possibilities for this technology. With several cameras running on a hunting property over the course of several seasons, you’ll have a powerful data set showing when bucks are moving based on time of season, time of day, temperature, and moon phase. This camera will do more than just pattern a specific buck, it will help you pattern deer activity in your area season after season. I ended up killing my biggest archery buck last season just a few weeks after we caught him on the Moultrie cam.
The only downside of the Moultrie Edge is its slightly slower trigger speed. It had a hard time catching me at the 10 foot walkthrough (as you can see in the image, I was almost out of frame). It also missed me at the 60-foot range during the daytime. The camera did perform well in the night walkthrough capturing me at the 60-foot range and producing solid nighttime images. Also, the slower trigger speed didn’t seem to hurt the camera in the field; it captures multiple photos every time a deer walks by. The images weren’t as perfect as those produced by some of the other cameras in this review, but for getting hunting intel they worked just fine.
Moultrie is co*ing out with an Edge Pro camera this summer that promises more performance at a price of $180. We look forward to getting our hands on that camera and putting it to the test. —A.R.
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One of the best buys in cell cams is the Bushnell Cellucore 20 with its 20 MP photos, customizable low glow flash, and easy-to-use app.
During the walk-through test, the Cellucore triggered at 10 feet with a perfectly centered photo—day and night. The camera didn’t capture me at 60 or 100 feet during the day, but at night it captured a series of five photos of me walking at 60 feet.
The Cellucore has three flash settings: short range, fast motion, and long range. I used the long-range flash setting during the walk-through test and it illuminated out to 43 yards. The downside of the long-range flash is that close objects will be over exposed. For my in-the-field test, I used the fast-motion flash and it produced evenly illuminated photos with good detail from 5 to 15 yards. It also captured several deer walking without much movement blur.
The daytime image quality was fair with good color and detail as well as no motion blur. At night, the photos had good black and white contrast with even exposure when using the fast-motion flash. —S.E.
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There’s a reason why most professional wildlife researchers who use trail cameras rely on Reconyx: Their cameras are known for reliably delivering high quality images. Hardcore hunters who want that same type of performance lean toward Reconyx, too. This camera performed well in the walk through test, triggering out to 60 feet day and night and also catching me at close range.
Importantly, it was the only camera that truly stopped motion at close range at night (you can see that image below). The other cameras produced slightly blurry images of me walking close-range at night.
At close range, I could hear other cameras firing, and at night I could see a bright red flash at 60 feet (the Stealth Cam being the exception here). This was not the case with the Reconyx. There was no visible flash and there was no trigger noise whatsoever.
Surprisingly, I had issues with the camera in the field. First, the app crashed several times when I started using it. I had to delete the app and reload it three different times. In the app store, I saw several reviews with users co*plaining about the same issue. Happily, all my photos were saved in my profile and Reconyx seems have to solved the issue. Second, the camera fogged up for a few days during the summer. I received several foggy pictures, and when my buddy went to check on the camera, there was a condensation spot inside the housing. We pulled the camera, I opened it up to dry it out, and set it again. The Reconyx went back to capturing clear images. But then a big snow storm hit our area and the camera went down again, with more condensation inside the body.
The camera has a five-year warranty, so this would be a fixable issue. I know several hardcore deer hunters who run Reconyx cameras and never have problems. But still, in our testing and review, we had to ding this very expensive camera for its failures in the field. —A.R.
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Cuddeback is one of the trail camera O.G.s and their new Tracks cellular cam certainly stands out with its two large antenna paddles. Another big differentiator with this camera is that it runs on 4 D batteries instead of AAs, like all the other models in this test. Cuddeback says the D batteries provide more juice and lifespan for the