Top of the line offering from this company it is
a fixed 6 MP dual flash camera. The red flash is delivered by 26 IR
emitters and the white flash is put out by a selectable big strobe.
The WGI cam comes in solid flat black and the Remington comes in a
camo front that has a super neat look. The PIR sensor and camera
lens are behind some hoot owl eye looking raised areas which makes
the camera the appearance that it is looking at you. The 8X 10X 3
inch case has a flat black back and no strap loops. There are just
bungee loops at each corner of the case. The strobe flash is at the
top and the IR flash is just under that. Double latches close the
case that has a full weather gasket. Some very small printed labels
inside the door can give programming instructions provided your bi-focal’s
will read that small. The inside front of the camera has the PIR/camera/flashes
which look out through the door when closed. Just under that is the
function lamps and aiming laser (nice touch) Centered is the large
KCD and below is the programming toggle. The power switch to the
camera and another to the laser are beside the programming toggle.
The SD card slot is at the bottom and USB port beside it. The
batteries (4 D cells) fit into two holes on each side with positive
side down. Even though this is not a small camera, it does have a
good camouflage color and should hide on a tree pretty good.
Security is non existing and will have to be owner developed if
necessary.Programming is very easy and
the instructions are easy to follow. Power the cam on and the LCD
will show a small area at the left with a flashing curser. Use the
up down button to move the curser up or down to the desired
programming area then use the right left to enter that area. The OK
button is the enter button to move you to the next selection. It is
very strait forward and easy to do. Hit the reset button to return
to factory settings when you choose to do that. There is 32 MB of
internal memory and will accept up to a 2 gig external SD card.
Delay settings are 30 seconds,1 min, 2min , and 5 minutes. I sure
wish the resolution was selectable instead of being a fixed 6 MP.
Though it is not mentioned I just found that there is an external
battery port on the back of the camera. That is good news but there
is also bad news associated with this, it is a dummy and not hooked
up because they were looking to the future and the next addition
will have that as a feature. This year they just installed the jack
to plug the hole in the case. One extra feature is the “location”
tab in the menu. This allows the user to write their choice of words
in this space (up to 8 letters/numbers). This is an aid to the users
who pull the cards and view them later once back to the home PC.
This is a nice feature that is found on more expensive cameras. The
LCD also will display picture count and event count. The difference
in these two measurements is the events keep on counting the PIR
activity during the delay period. The separate switch to enable the
laser aim has a definite place on trail cameras. We see many
pictures where the flash is out of whack with the target area. This
laser has some cautions associated with its use and be sure not to
look into its light because it can cause eye damage, also do not aim
it at pets or animals because it can damage their eyes also. You get
temperature, date, time and location stamped on each picture. This
company has gone the modern route when it comes to firmware updates.
The current version is printed inside the door and when you visit
their website you can double check what is current for that cam and
if there is an update it can be downloaded. We have to get this cam
to the test bench and then get the flash/sensing done so we can
begin to collect pictures and videos. Video size is 320X240 and is
also fixed.
08-08-2009 update: Hit the test table and the trigger
time came in at 1.5 seconds with out flash and 2.0 with white flash.
The flash range is out past 50 feet for both red and white flashes.
Everything so far appears that this camera is working pretty good
with the exception of the file size on the night pictures. They are
only three MP where the day pictures are six MP. The camera
specifications call it as being a fixed 6 MP but we find that night
shots are at 3 MP. We have a few sample pictures and so far they are
clear and readable for the white flash night pictures., We have yet
to get any good day pictures.
08-15-2009 update: We took another bag of our
hard to pay for corn and strung it out so we could capture a few quick pictures.
The camera did a respectable job but the clarity did not come up to the 6 MP
rating as far as picture clarity. They seemed a little fuzzy both day night
pictures and instead of having whiteout problems this camera had readable dark
color pictures during the transition. Price wise and function still makes this
camera a value compared to some of the competition. More detailed work is still
planned as space allows us to do so.
08-22-2009 update: Another few days of
gathering pictures. We feel the day time color pictures (6MP) are very good but
the (3MP) night pictures are coming out a bit fuzzy. All functions have worked
and no failures so far. This is a pretty decent camera if you are in line with a
bi-flash camera under $100.
08-26-2009 update: We have been experiencing
an issue with the batteries and this camera. For the second time we had a pre
mature failure due to batteries, but when tested the batteries did not show they
were dead. We suspected that maybe the battery holder shoulders (pos. end) may
be the problem and I will get to work on that today. This is the second cam that
has shown us this issue, We have had all other functions work great and
replacing with new cells did not clear the problem. We are getting less than a
week of operation before we experience this problem.
08-26-2009 update#2: Pulled the camera into
the lab and started through it and the first thing I discovered was the
batteries were far from being dead. I checked all connections and everything was
in place. When the on button was pushed the camera LCD would flash a couple of
times and then go out. I pulled it down and did a quick hookup for external
battery and hooked it to a 14 Ahr SLA battery and it woke up and started to pay
attention. Some how there is just not enough umph in the 4 D cells to last much
more than a couple days. This is hard to diagnose as to exactly why it requires
the extra power to work. I am going to run it for a few days and see how it does
with the external battery. This is a nice camera and I hope we can get it to
function and also find some answers.
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