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2010 Primos Truth X 7MP
62 count IR Camera Review
I am about ready to kick someone in the chin because this is another
camera that came out of the package with another
instruction book that has no specification chart.
I am going to have to pull and search every corner to
get the data. Most will have to come off the package and
the rest from the catalogs. Then I will have to start to
look at file size for more. Now that rant is out of the
way, let me start moving into the review and try to keep
my un biased thoughts while I get busy. When the
package arrived I was expecting more of the same
findings as the dozen or so of this manufactures camera
that I have dealt with the past few months. To my
surprise it is of an al together different design and
everything about it makes me think that they went to
some high classed supplier for this camera rather than
the same place as the other cameras came from. The fit
and feel and look is design is very well thought out.
From all we had seen in the catalogs this camera was
thought to be small, but out of the package came not a
monster sixed camera but a full eight inches tall and
about five inches wide. The thickness is three inches
with good bark grabbers and pipe through for a security
cable on the back. I was trying to figure the over all
look out as to what it reminded me of. The first thought
was Aztec, with all the triangles and raised portions to
break up the silhouette. I believe the camouflage is
called “Matrix” I think. It is a nice fall brown and
easy on the eyes to look at. There are two triangle
extensions about ¾ inches out on each side that have
holes for the supplied heavy duty mounting strap. There
is a little door at the top front with a block centered
on the door with PRIMOS in black with an OD background.
This somehow did not stick out so much on the other
three models we tested so it seems as if those two
fellows are definitely proud to put their name right out
front. This little door hides all the controls and the
view screen/SD card slot/USB port/on-off switch and
control buttons. I like this very much because my first
thought was just set up and turn on the view screen and
wiggle the cam around while watching the screen and bam
you have the perfect aim. There is no weight to the door
so closing and securing will not disturb your setup.
This little door has a wide solid latch that fits tight
and there is a rubber seal to keep out the moisture.
Moving on down the front of the camera is a wedge shaped
array selectable 32/62 count mounted on a camouflaged
background to break up the look. Next items below the
array are the function indicator, main camera lens, and
the light sensor. The multi zone PIR lens is centered at
the bottom. The bottom of the cam has two battery tubes
that hold two each D cells with the polarity picture
down inside. These tubes are closed by screw in covers
that are tethered to the camera so they will not get
lost. There is a un labeled external battery port (6
volt I think) because of the 4 D cells and normally it
is center positive but this is not indicated.
Four D cells and a little effort to close everything up and this camera
was ready to take a new SD card in its mouth. The click
of the first button once the LCD came alive told me that
I am dealing with a little more supplicated and higher
quality camera. Things went well through the programming
and the way it was laid out and executed was very easy.
Again I can see why those two guys wanted their name up
front and centered. Programming started at live preview,
image viewer, camera mode, photo resolution, photo
burst, delay interval, number of LED’s, set date/time,
set password/security, battery type, format card, and
last camera information. You use the up/down to toggle
through and the left right to enter and the OK to select
settings. The M button is also the back button. I just
picked up my Cabelas Archery catalog and looked up the
price and was a little shocked to see that this camera
is listed about $280 which puts it in the neighborhood
of $30 dollars above the average cost of cameras and yet
still cheaper than some more that are listed in the same
section. I am going to stretch out a little and say that
I think that because of the fit, feel, and setup
function I have seen during these first few hours of
doing the lap dance and trips to the yard for tests that
there is going to be a whole lot of more expensive
cameras that will have a hard time matching what this
camera does. I hope I am right but more than one of my
picks have fell apart on one or more of the testing
stations. This camera just acts different so we will
see.
All
initial testing of pictures and flash along with trigger
times went so good I am not going to dilly dally around
I am going to move this camera out to Anthony to get all
the real official work done. To bad there is a line of
cameras ahead. Stay tuned you should not be
disappointed. I take that back a little, you should not
be disappointed with the camera but the guide book needs
work.
08-15-2010 update:
We have had more stops with this cam than a
San Francisco
trolley. Maybe this time we will be able to continue and
get some things done. Brand new out of the box and again
a round with the trigger time testing. This proved the
times were in the 1.3 second time frame for both with
and without flash. My first glance told me this might be
a little bit of a competition kicker and so far it looks
to be well on its way. The day range/8 plate tests
showed very good true natural color sharp and clear
pictures. The zoom on the plate showed very good detail
at 200%. The tests all went fast because of the sensing
and low delay time settings. This is just a fun and nice
camera to work with especially after spending some very
precious hours with a BTC re evaluating yet another set
of issues yet to be published. With our fingers crossed
we hope we finally have a camera that will fly through a
review on its own with out hours of research to find out
why there is a lack of function. Off to the wild now
where only the camera and its targets are involved along
with Mother Nature.
08-21-2010 update:
Just as things get going we have yet another problem
shows up and it has us stopped again until we get it
figured out. It looks like there may be a glitch in the
firm ware, but until we know we are again stopped.
Primos has been on top of this and we expect fast
results. The problems seem to be related to SD card
incompatibility.
08-22-2010 update:
A short discussion with the good people at Primos leads
us to the old card compatibility issue that so many
cameras recently have had is the problem. We are looking
at possible format problems and other things but we now
have the camera working well with certain brand name
cards. We are now doing the format tests and will have
more to relate once we get through with these tests.
09-25-2010 update:
Putting this camera through card testing was not easy.
The end results were that the SanDisk cards seemed to be
the favorite. The Toshiba worked somewhat and our Ridata
cards did not work at all (purchased from NewEgg.com
cheap).
Kingston
cards are supposed to work well also but we did not have
any. We are in the process of building a deck of brand
name cards up to 2 gig for this purpose but we could not
find a single vendor who carried a wide variety of card
brands so we could place an order. Went ahead and put
the cam out and collected a bunch more sample pictures
and the whole event went well and we could see no
issues. During the burst mode tests we could see the
light metering kicking in and out but all pictures were
very good. I think that Primos now has another winner
that is wearing their name but save yourself some
trouble and purchase some compatible SD cards up front.
01-23-2011 update:
Due to the many starts and stops with this camera over
firmware updates and sd card incompatibility an accurate
battery life test was not possible. However, our photo
count was greater than 2410 photos over a 3 month
period. We are now closing this review.
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