Best Cell Camera

[philsanchez76]

I never could get my hands on one of the original tactacams. My question is why the heck did they discontinue them for a newer model if they sold like hotcakes and everyone loved them? if I was that business owner I'd go ahead and pump out another couple hundred thousand of those while I developed my newer model right? I do want to try a Ridgetec just for a vanity purchase. Ability to send HD video to my phone gets me excited.

 

[MOtgrinMI]

I've got 3 tactacam reveals and will be getting a couple of the X's when they come out. For $100 they're simply fantastic. For that price I'd get them even if they didn't send cell pics. The images off the SD card are fantastic and the cameras work perfectly. The cell images will not be as clear but they're good enough for my intentions.

Also, I hang all of mine high and angle down (thanks to @7mmremmag) and don't have any issues

Hanging high certainly can work if done right.

The main point I made though is if the aiming isn't precise enough you are going to miss a lot of pics. Many think their cameras are doing just fine when hanging high but are actually missing pics they don't even know about. I've done some testing to this regard with several brands (two cameras same area one high and one low) and the high ones certainly miss pics if animals don't happen to cross midway through the picture frame (i.e., animals only move on the bottom of the picture frame or top and don't cross through the middle - see attached pic). This is why one complaint you hear often with the first gen tactacams is that they can walk around in front of the camera and not get pics of themselves or the detection lacks distance. This is because their aiming wasn't done well in most instances. There are even more complaints to this effect when people hang them high (see Reveal User Group on facebook). The reveal X should help this problem a bit with the live view aiming assistance!

It liken aining a trail cam to trapping. Hanging low increases the detection area signifigantly - you need an animal in the area but it doesn't need to step on a precise spot to trap it because that detection zone is stretching across the entire area. As the size of the trap get smaller (the higher you place the trail camera in the tree) you need to be even more precise with aiming (or leg hold/snare trap location) to capture that animal. The detection zone cuts through a much smaller area when hanging high.

An important thing to consider is that hanging high is most effective when you are aiming the cam at an area that deer HAVE to cross to get through an area or places where you have scrapes, attractants, food, water, or minerals to focus their attention/movement. In all these cases the trap or detection zone can be smaller because the probability of the animal moving close to an exact location is much higher.

Exodus and Ridgetec excel in hanging high because they built their detection circuits to compensate for elevation a little bit by include more than one horizontal detection zone on the sensor. This is not to say that hanging high cant be done with other brands though you just have to be more detail oriented about the locations you choose and your aiming.

Hope my rambling is somewhat interesting to folks or helps someone avoid some common pitfalls of trail camera placement and aiming!

 

[MOtgrinMI]

Based on replies and research, I'm considering the tactacam reveal x, exodus render and the ridgetec lookout. Obviously the price points are on two different ends of the spectrum, but I need to hang them high (theft is bad here in NJ/public land). I really don't need any special features. I run a couple basic cameras and am only interested in pictures (unless someone can justify advantages of video). I'd like to extend battery life as much as possible, but also started leaning away from buying a solar panel and sticking with lithium batteries. If I don't get pictures "right away", that's fine - other forums discussed that some cameras have a setting to send a cluster of pictures at the end of the day (better for battery life?) and I'm interested in that.

Basically my needs are:
-hang high in the tree
-pictures>video
-reliability of taking/receiving pictures
-battery life

I think you are spot on with your thinking.

It's public land so I would automatically shy away from the cams with a more expensive initial investment. If people do see a RT lookout or Exodus up in the tree there is a much greater likelihood that they will take the time to come back and steal it with climbing sticks or a ladder, etc.

One advantage Exodus has in this situation though is that they have a 5 year no BS warranty that INCLUDES theft. How they handle it is you would file a theft claim with them and then they would give you a new replacement cam at 50% off new.

Spartan on the other hand has built in GPS that can not be disabled so you can track down the cam. I will say though that I don't think many people are actually able to successfully recover their cams even with that feature so I am not sure its worth the extra money.

The new reveal with the aiming assistance should help a lot with hanging high and the PIR sensor is supposed to be be better for this application. The only thing you need to think about is putting them in locations where deer are much more likely to HAVE OR WANT to cross through. Think very small pinch points, scrapes, mock scrapes, etc that you can aim at to get the pics you need. This would even be true for the Exodus or Ridgetec's although their sensors are actually designed to decrease the likliehood an animal moves through the picture frame without a trigger by having multiple horizontal detection zones through the picture frame.

The new reveal X is also supposed to have better battery life than the original (which I already thought was stellar) and if you don't need video (something I consider nice but not super important for scouting) I would save the money and reinvest in additional reveals. I found the original reveals to be reliable at taking and sending pictures but the sending part will be HIGHLY dependent on the signal they get in the area you use them.
This is where you really need to understand who has the best signal in the are you want to hang them.

One major advantage of the Reveal SK is that they will ship with two SIM cards (one for ATT and one for Verizon) and you will be able to pick and choose and even swap carriers so you can achieve the best signal strength no matter where you are. This is also a huge advantage the RT lookouts have as they have the same capability being dual carrier cell cams! You can do something similar with cuddebacks to but you have to buy an additional cell home unit so you have two cell homes that work with either ATT or Verizon. I really like this flexibility as it ensures that no matter where I put them I can pick and choose the carrier with the bestsignal strength. The last thing I'll mention about the SK's is they will also have a solar panel included. If you are able to hang them in an area with a decent amount of ambient light, I hear they will run pretty much continuously without a battery change which is awesome.

 

[Camelcluch]

I have a few tacticams and like them a lot. I feel like it’s a great value with the cell palm and cost of the camera. The pics are good but not the best. I will pick up a few more this year and maybe add some micro links to Browning’s I already own.

 

[hokiehunter373]

About how high do you hang yours? Thank you!

The 1st 2 pics, over the stream, are about one stick up a tree and the tree is off the stream bed. If you're standing in the stream I can't reach it, not that that's saying much lol. I'd guess it's like 7-8 foot up.
Pics 3-5 are probably 6 foot high
The last pic is 2 sticks high or 1 stick and an aider

 

[hokiehunter373]

Hanging high certainly can work if done right.

The main point I made though is if the aiming isn't precise enough you are going to miss a lot of pics. Many think their cameras are doing just fine when hanging high but are actually missing pics they don't even know about. I've done some testing to this regard with several brands (two cameras same area one high and one low) and the high ones certainly miss pics if animals don't happen to cross midway through the picture frame (i.e., animals only move on the bottom of the picture frame or top and don't cross through the middle - see attached pic). This is why one complaint you hear often with the first gen tactacams is that they can walk around in front of the camera and not get pics of themselves or the detection lacks distance. This is because their aiming wasn't done well in most instances. There are even more complaints to this effect when people hang them high (see Reveal User Group on facebook). The reveal X should help this problem a bit with the live view aiming assistance!

It liken aining a trail cam to trapping. Hanging low increases the detection area signifigantly - you need an animal in the area but it doesn't need to step on a precise spot to trap it because that detection zone is stretching across the entire area. As the size of the trap get smaller (the higher you place the trail camera in the tree) you need to be even more precise with aiming (or leg hold/snare trap location) to capture that animal. The detection zone cuts through a much smaller area when hanging high.

An important thing to consider is that hanging high is most effective when you are aiming the cam at an area that deer HAVE to cross to get through an area or places where you have scrapes, attractants, food, water, or minerals to focus their attention/movement. In all these cases the trap or detection zone can be smaller because the probability of the animal moving close to an exact location is much higher.

Exodus and Ridgetec excel in hanging high because they built their detection circuits to compensate for elevation a little bit by include more than one horizontal detection zone on the sensor. This is not to say that hanging high cant be done with other brands though you just have to be more detail oriented about the locations you choose and your aiming.

Hope my rambling is somewhat interesting to folks or helps someone avoid some common pitfalls of trail camera placement and aiming!

Agreed, you definitely have to set them up correctly. When I hang mine I always hold my iphone up to where the lens of the trail camera is, flip it to selfie mode, and look at my phone screen to make sure the camera is aimed where I want it to be. Works perfectly.

 

[hokiehunter373]

The 1st 2 pics, over the stream, are about one stick up a tree and the tree is off the stream bed. If you're standing in the stream I can't reach it, not that that's saying much lol. I'd guess it's like 7-8 foot up.
Pics 3-5 are probably 6 foot high
The last pic is 2 sticks high or 1 stick and an aider

Sorry for all the consecutive posts, here's an example of one of my setups for pics 3-5. Muzzleloader is on the ground leaning against the tree. Probably closer to 5 feet than 6

 

[MOtgrinMI]

I never could get my hands on one of the original tactacams. My question is why the heck did they discontinue them for a newer model if they sold like hotcakes and everyone loved them? if I was that business owner I'd go ahead and pump out another couple hundred thousand of those while I developed my newer model right? I do want to try a Ridgetec just for a vanity purchase. Ability to send HD video to my phone gets me excited.

That's a good question and from making money/protecting the bottom line standpoint Tactacam could have just kept on cranking out the Reveals that they already spent the money designing, manufacturing, and testing (and raking in dough). This is how great the company is though about having a really great product. They noticed that there were quite a few things customers didn't like about the cams, didn't like about the QA/QC from the manufacturer, and didn't like the supply chain issues so they decided to go ahead and switch manufactures and redo everything on their own dime. They have almost certainly lost some profits in the short term at their own expense by doing so when they could have easily just pumped out the same product, not made improvements, and made tons of money.

Now this is where I think their long term thinking about redoing the camera is really advantageous than just the short term profit thinking I described above. If the new X's and SK's are reliable and customers like them AND they have less warranty claims on the camera AND the Reveals reputation and demand for them remains high they will easily recoup all the costs of redevelopment and then some, they have to pay fewer techs/customer service folks to handle warranty claims, lose less money sending out replacements, and can build off a more solid foundation than the original reveals to incrementally improve them to continue sales into the future. If the new cams are as good as they say and they keep the same price point, they are poised to gain alot of market share in the trail cam game as well which means more subscription money coming in for the company as well - the real money maker in the cell cam game. The way they went about it is smart and kudos to them for having a more long term view and seeing the benefit of redesigning the cam because (in the short term) a complete redesign was almost certainly a hit on their profits.

I'm not ready to pat them on the back just yet though as we will have to see if the new cams can live up to the hype!

 

[VFL]

That's a good question and from making money/protecting the bottom line standpoint Tactacam could have just kept on cranking out the Reveals that they already spent the money designing, manufacturing, and testing (and raking in dough). This is how great the company is though about having a really great product. They noticed that there were quite a few things customers didn't like about the cams, didn't like about the QA/QC from the manufacturer, and didn't like the supply chain issues so they decided to go ahead and switch manufactures and redo everything on their own dime. They have almost certainly lost some profits in the short term at their own expense by doing so when they could have easily just pumped out the same product, not made improvements, and made tons of money.

Now this is where I think their long term thinking about redoing the camera is really advantageous than just the short term profit thinking I described above. If the new X's and SK's are reliable and customers like them AND they have less warranty claims on the camera AND the Reveals reputation and demand for them remains high they will easily recoup all the costs of redevelopment and then some, they have to pay fewer techs/customer service folks to handle warranty claims, lose less money sending out replacements, and can build off a more solid foundation than the original reveals to incrementally improve them to continue sales into the future. If the new cams are as good as they say and they keep the same price point, they are poised to gain alot of market share in the trail cam game as well which means more subscription money coming in for the company as well - the real money maker in the cell cam game. The way they went about it is smart and kudos to them for having a more long term view and seeing the benefit of redesigning the cam because (in the short term) a complete redesign was almost certainly a hit on their profits.

I'm not ready to pat them on the back just yet though as we will have to see if the new cams can live up to the hype!

Well said and couldn’t agree more. Sounds like they have the trust in the new manufacturers which is a good sign considering tactacam is a solid, reputable company already. All signs are pointing in the right direction for them - hopefully these new cams are as good as they sound.

 

[MOtgrinMI]

I do want to try a Ridgetec just for a vanity purchase. Ability to send HD video to my phone gets me excited.

The RT video is stellar IMO and is full HD at 30fps. It has excellent trigger speed and recovery time as well that only the Spartan GoLive can match at the moment. It also has all the customization you could ask for regarding how long you want your videos, quality, sound, frame rate, etc. Not even spartan can match the RT in the customization ability of cell video. You can really tweak it to fit your data plan needs.

Another thing I REALLY like about the RT's are the data plans. They give you the ability to buy a data pool that NEVER EXPIRES along with a monthly data plan. I just set my RTs to the lowest monthly data plan and buy a big pool of data that never expires and this drastically reduces my monthly costs, I don't have to ever worry about overages, and I can switch from photos to videos/change quality whenever I like without worrying about running out of data. I also don't ever have to worry about overpaying for data that expires that I don't use.

With other cell cam plans you purchase data monthly and if you don't use it, you have already paid for the data and it expires and you have to repurchase some amount of data each month which may be more OR less than you need. With RT I can run the lowest cost data plan they have and the cell cams will share and use all of that data AND THEN the cams will sip data off the reserve data pool that I bought previously. So if I have a low data usage month, I am not overpaying for data that I didn't use (i.e. no money or data wasted). When I have a high data usage month with my cams, I dont have to worry about overages as the cams will work off the initial data I purchased AND then work off the reserve data pool I bought. With the reserve data pool never expiring, I can just add some data to that pool when I get close to using it all and only pay for the EXACT amount of data I use each month (no wasted money by overpaying on data I don't use or paying overage data).

It's one of the fairest data pricing models in the cell cam game IMO. I can run lots of RT's almost as inexpensivley monthly as I can run the Tactacams using this strategy and still get amazing cell video for the most exciting times of year (when they are hitting scrapes, chasing, vocalizing, etc.).

Overall, you won't be dissapointed (other than in your wallet ) in buying a RT as it is scores highly in all cell cam categories all the way around. I hear they are also going to add Verizon and ATT connect services as well which will allow you to add the cameras to you cell phone plan and you'll be able to crank up cell video to max quality and length without worrying about data costs if you already have an unlimited cell phone data plan.

 

[Tapeworm]

The RT video is stellar IMO and is full HD at 30fps. It has excellent trigger speed and recovery time as well that only the Spartan GoLive can match at the moment. It also has all the customization you could ask for regarding how long you want your videos, quality, sound, frame rate, etc. Not even spartan can match the RT in the customization ability of cell video. You can really tweak it to fit your data plan needs.

Another thing I REALLY like about the RT's are the data plans. They give you the ability to buy a data pool that NEVER EXPIRES along with a monthly data plan. I just set my RTs to the lowest monthly data plan and buy a big pool of data that never expires and this drastically reduces my monthly costs, I don't have to ever worry about overages, and I can switch from photos to videos/change quality whenever I like without worrying about running out of data. I also don't ever have to worry about overpaying for data that expires that I don't use.

With other cell cam plans you purchase data monthly and if you don't use it, you have already paid for the data and it expires and you have to repurchase some amount of data each month which may be more OR less than you need. With RT I can run the lowest cost data plan they have and the cell cams will share and use all of that data AND THEN the cams will sip data off the reserve data pool that I bought previously. So if I have a low data usage month, I am not overpaying for data that I didn't use (i.e. no money or data wasted). When I have a high data usage month with my cams, I dont have to worry about overages as the cams will work off the initial data I purchased AND then work off the reserve data pool I bought. With the reserve data pool never expiring, I can just add some data to that pool when I get close to using it all and only pay for the EXACT amount of data I use each month (no wasted money by overpaying on data I don't use or paying overage data).

It's one of the fairest data pricing models in the cell cam game IMO. I can run lots of RT's almost as inexpensivley monthly as I can run the Tactacams using this strategy and still get amazing cell video for the most exciting times of year (when they are hitting scrapes, chasing, vocalizing, etc.).

Overall, you won't be dissapointed (other than in your wallet ) in buying a RT as it is scores highly in all cell cam categories all the way around. I hear they are also going to add Verizon and ATT connect services as well which will allow you to add the cameras to you cell phone plan and you'll be able to crank up cell video to max quality and length without worrying about data costs if you already have an unlimited cell phone data plan.

Thanks for all the great info

Data plan costs are gonna add up pretty quickly it seems with cameras spread across multiple WMAs


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jtw0057]

In the market for a cell cam as well and was seeing that moultrie is about to come out with a new cell cam, the delta. Was wondering If yall have any experience with their cell cams and if they are a good option as the specs look pretty nice. I have some older A-35's that have worked awesome for me so I at least know their regular cams work great.

 

[MOtgrinMI]

Thanks for all the great info

Data plan costs are gonna add up pretty quickly it seems with cameras spread across multiple WMAs


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yep, and if you intend to run multiple cams it should be a HUGE consideration in which one you purchase. Don't get caught up in just the short term initial cost of the cam, also think about the long term cell plan costs.

Also consider a dual carrier cam if you will be moving them around a lot. You never know who will have the best signal in the area you want to move them to and this will prevent you from having multiple cell cams that just don't get enough signal to work in certain areas. Hate to buy a cell cam and have it essentially be a non-functional brick that you have to run as a traditional cam just because you are tethered to a certain carrier.

RT's and Reveal SK's are the only dual carrier cams that I know of currently. You can purchase two cell homes for the cuddelink system for each carrier to mitigate that problem with cuddelink.

 

[MOtgrinMI]

In the market for a cell cam as well and was seeing that moultrie is about to come out with a new cell cam, the delta. Was wondering If yall have any experience with their cell cams and if they are a good option as the specs look pretty nice. I have some older A-35's that have worked awesome for me so I at least know their regular cams work great.

I can only tell you what I have heard about the moultries. People seem to hate the 6000 model due to poor battery life mainly and people seem to love the 7000 model. I've seen pics and they seem about average quality of all the cell cam offerings. I'm not sure if the 6000 and 7000 had the ability to do OTA (over the air) commands to change settings and the like but they are heavily advertising that feature with the delta. Many cell cam companies already have the OTA commands feature.

I'm sure the delta will be an improvement over both the current 6000 and 7000 models. I don't know much about their data pricing model but their website says $8 per month per camera for cell line access and then you purchase an additional data plan that all your cameras use. This alone makes them way more expensive than tactacam where you don't pay the monthly cell phone access line fee. You will also pay for some amount of data whether you use it all or not monthly which means you may pay for data you don't use or go over and pay overages.

Their standard monthly data plan is right on par with tactacam but they do offer a nice discount if you pay up front for a year. The unlimited data plan as a plan pool seems REALLY inexpensive though at $35 a month for all your cams (no matter how many you run!) and unlimited data but keep in mind you will still be paying that $8 month line access fee on each camera. Your costs will definitley scale up signifigantly the more cams you add but this is true for most cell cam companies.

When considering cell cam costs its best to just gather the information on all the plan costs and then simulate the yearly costs associated with the number of cameras you intend to run. This is why Cuddelink blows everyone else out of the water on cell plan costs when you plan to run lots of cams. You purchase one cell plan and all the cameras will use that one cell line and data plan to send pics. The major disadvantage of that though is that all the cameras have to be located on the same property or at least close enough to send and receive data from one another.

 

[jtw0057]

I didn't see anything mentioning the $8 activation per camera but the tactacam plans still seem better than the moultrie as the moultrie doesn't really have an intermediate option only 100 or 1000 if you don't go unlimited, plus the unlimited is cheaper for tactacam. I think If moultrie offered the 500 photos for 5$ as a plan instead of an add on that would be perfect for me. Looking like I'll most likely grab one of the tactacams as I'm only planning on having 1 cell cam to test out this year and see if I can utilize it on the back corners of our property.

 

[7mmremmag]

I've got 3 tactacam reveals and will be getting a couple of the X's when they come out. For $100 they're simply fantastic. For that price I'd get them even if they didn't send cell pics. The images off the SD card are fantastic and the cameras work perfectly. The cell images will not be as clear but they're good enough for my intentions.

Also, I hang all of mine high and angle down (thanks to @7mmremmag) and don't have any issues

Glad they're working for you! I've sold a handful the last couple weeks in my etsy store. I think people are starting to get scouting in their heads.


Thanks again!

 

[Yakkin]

I do not have experience with anything but my RidgeTec. However, I love it! What sold me is the customer service and the ability to change my data plan every month based on what I want at the time. I run video during the season but right now I just want low quality stills. Antlers just dropped here in Florida and I don’t need to see high quality velvet nubs lol.

When I called RidgeTec with questions, I was on speakerphone and the person in the background decided to help me out. Turns out it was the owner! I was having reception issues and was asking about an external antenna. He said it would definitely work and he was right! I installed the antenna up the tree about 20 feet and now I very rarely get an upload fail. I know no one else at the club gets enough reception like I do. I highly recommend getting their security lock box. It is very well constructed and not very expensive.
Their customer service is what really sealed the deal.

 

[MOtgrinMI]

I do not have experience with anything but my RidgeTec. However, I love it! What sold me is the customer service and the ability to change my data plan every month based on what I want at the time. I run video during the season but right now I just want low quality stills. Antlers just dropped here in Florida and I don’t need to see high quality velvet nubs lol.

When I called RidgeTec with questions, I was on speakerphone and the person in the background decided to help me out. Turns out it was the owner! I was having reception issues and was asking about an external antenna. He said it would definitely work and he was right! I installed the antenna up the tree about 20 feet and now I very rarely get an upload fail. I know no one else at the club gets enough reception like I do. I highly recommend getting their security lock box. It is very well constructed and not very expensive.
Their customer service is what really sealed the deal.

Yep, CS is phenomenal at RT. Anthony Jowers the president and CEO of RT USA goes above and beyond with customer service. I’ve had him answer questions on weekends and even call me when I’ve had a question. He is the same guy who ran the chasing game trail cam review site for years and is super detailed oriented about how his cams perform. He makes sure his cams backup their claims/stands behind them and also happened to be one of the main people that helped develop Spartan cameras before going out on his own. He has done a great job improving on many aspects of the Spartan cams and put out a product that performs admirably with many of the much more established and more expensive cell cam companies/models.

 

[MOtgrinMI]

I didn't see anything mentioning the $8 activation per camera but the tactacam plans still seem better than the moultrie as the moultrie doesn't really have an intermediate option only 100 or 1000 if you don't go unlimited, plus the unlimited is cheaper for tactacam. I think If moultrie offered the 500 photos for 5$ as a plan instead of an add on that would be perfect for me. Looking like I'll most likely grab one of the tactacams as I'm only planning on having 1 cell cam to test out this year and see if I can utilize it on the back corners of our property.

Yep each cam costs $8 a month just to activate cell service AND then you purchase data. The difference between Tactacam and Mountie is you buy an individual data plan for each cam and this price covers the cell activation fee as well. With Moultrie you pay $8 per cam for activation but then can purchase data that all cams can share.I will say that tactacam plans functionally work like there.y are sharing data as well as had many on one account and had one spot blow up with pics and one not be as active and not have any overages.

So depending on how many cams you run and what your data needs are the Moultrie plans can end up being significantly less expensive than the tactacam plans because you can get unlimited data that all your cams can share for $35 monthly plus $8*number of cams you run. To be clear it’s only a better deal than tactacam if you run a huge amount of cameras and need large amounts of data (cell video). If you are a normal user who just needs pics for intel, Tactacam will likely be the most economical for you.

To plan you really need to throw all of the monthly costs associated with the cams you comparing into an excel spreadsheet * the number of cams you want/plan to run to see who offers you a plan that will save you the most money. The math on which plan is most economical changes whether you run more or fewer cams.

 

[MOtgrinMI]

Of interest, reveal X first review.

See review here.

Reviewer says he gets 3 to 1 for the number of pictures compared to the gen 1 reveal. This probably has to do with a better detection circuit but also the aim assist. If this is the case, I do think reveal users will end up needing to purchase a more expensive cell plan for each camera which changes the math on which cell cam is cheaper to run long term.

They completely did away with the LCD screen but if you have a smartphone it’s more than replaced by the WiFi aim assist. Settings will now be changed through the app only which you can do in real time when connected to the cameras WiFi. Going to be a lot of people that don’t like having to tote a smartphone around to hang the cameras/mess with settings but it’s pretty much assured you have a smartphone because the only way to get pics from the reveal over cellular is through the app (no web portal. The problem comes in when you are out in remote areas with low battery and your phone dies… you’ll be setting up somewhat blind on aiming in that case. Or it’s raining…

Still no black flash or videos to app. Still only sends 2nd shot in a burst of photos. I’m not sure at this point if some of these additional features are coming on the reveal sk or variations on the reveal x model or changes in the app. Has HD photo requests, has ability to change settings every time the cam transmits a photo. Would like to get some actual trigger speeds and recovery times to see if those are improved as well.

What do you guys think of the X after watching the review?