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2010 Spypoint IR8 8MP
46 count Red Flash Camera Review
We are still in the process of going through the IR-6 camera which is a
switch based camera. This is a view screen and program
through the LCD type camera. With each new camera coming
from this company we see that they hold to their quality
promise in construction. Slipping a new set of AA
batteries into this camera brought the programming/view
screen alive once the switch hit the on position. This
will be discussed a little later but I will say their
setup procedures are very simple and easy to do.
Measuring five and a half inches wide and seven inches tall this camera
fits the mini cam size. It is only about two and a half
inches thick and wears a rough finish fall camo coat
that does not reflect much light except for a couple
small areas where the lenses are. The main lens is high
on the front with the grill covered array just below.
The PIR sensor lens is the multi zone style and measures
one and an eighth inches. Across the bottom are the
solar/battery ports and tri-pod insert. The back of the
camera has nice contoured bark grabbers and small strap
loops up under the top bark grabbers. The case is very
solid and has two aggravating latches that want to be in
the wrong position just about the time you want to close
the camera. Once arranged in the proper position these
latches do securely close the full gasket tight against
the other side to keep out the bad weather. This is a
cam in a box type of arrangement. This means that once
the door is opened the camera can just be removed and
put in your lap to program or to change cards. The case
remains on the tree so you never loose aim. The camera
is just a view screen/programming switches and on off
switch. The rest of the space is taken up by a six AA
battery holder compartment that has a snap on cover to
keep the batteries stable. The right side edge of the
camera unit has the TV out/USB ports. Just below that is
the SD card (32 gig) slot and PIR sensing adjustment
wheel.
As promised above, we would talk a little about programming. The first
thing I looked at was the minimum delay setting and
(four letter word) it only went down to one minute. So
this made me look to see if the burst mode (multi shot)
could back up this design. They have a six burst (one
every 10 seconds) per trigger. This means that as long
as the buck following the doe is hot on her tail within
one minute this camera will catch a picture. Let him
come one minute and 5 seconds later he would be missed
because the camera now is forced to go into its delay
period which is a full 60 seconds. Most could probably
live with those figures as long as we see a sub two
second trigger on this camera. Its little brother turned
in a sub 1.5 second for both with and without flash so
we feel we will probably see decent times with this
camera also.
Documentation in English is well written (needs some help on the spec
sheet) and has everything stuffed into 13 pages. All
programming is done on the view 2.4 inch view screen.
One feature setting this cam apart from others is the
continuous adjustment PIR sensing adjustment wheel. This
is a fully functional sensitivity adjustment that
actually works not like those we seen on the KT cameras.
On the High Quality setting the camera takes Full 8 MP color day/IR night pictures
at 3264x2448 in dimensions. The Normal setting
produces pictures that are 2560x1920 while the Low
setting produces photos at 2048x1536 . The delay can be
set at increments up to 30 minutes. The photo strip has
time/date/temp/moon phase printed on each photo when
selected. Auxiliary power can be delivered by an
external battery (optional) plus there is a solar panel
port to also keep the battery topped off.
The quick check of photo quality was done in the normal setting which we
feel is 5 MP (not listed on the spec sheet) showed that
the picture quality is the typical Spy Point above
average quality. The Night with IR had very good white
black contrast which is one of the markers out system
looks for when the quality is analyzed. All this you can
see once the sample pictures are gathered. The array
seemed to be on way to long during the night capture.
Their other cameras we tested were much shorter in
duration.
The
new programming feature they came up with to aid those
who want to use the camera for security operations. This
is the continuous mode which means that an 8 gig card
can hold 8k pictures and when full the camera will still
continue to record pictures and then erase the oldest
picture until you shut down and change the card. Then
under the power mode you can choose to either use
batteries or electricity. The optional AC adapter is
used in the electricity mode plus it moves the trigger
time down to about .4 seconds which means there is no
wake up as used on batteries. The electricity mode
cannot be used while just on batteries and the trigger
time then will be stretched out to about 1.3 seconds.
09-10-2010 update: Found a little time so we
got the trigger times done and they came out at 1.39
seconds (varies +/- .1 depending on light conditions)
with out flash and 1.25 with flash. The six burst
has the following times:
which shows they are a good solid 9.5 seconds apart.
This means that when the six burst is selected the
camera will have a full 57 seconds of continuous
pictures 9.5s apart and then enter the mandatory one
minute delay period. We then moved to the hill and
captured the day range/8 plate pictures and they came
out nice and clear. The camera gave us a sensing
distance set on maximum of 48 feet at 75 degrees. The
flash range showed that this camera will pump a lot of
light just like the IR-6 down range past the 50 foot
marker. This is another camera that we are going to like
from this company this year. They are
working on alternative means to maybe lessen the delay
period when the camera is hooked to an external battery.
Being they only have six AA cells for power, battery
life is one of the main reasons for the one minute
delay. Less pictures correlates to better battery life.
This would not be the case if external power is being
used.
09-25-2010 update:
Sample pictures a plenty and the battery still shows
Full. The pictures are all good with a little blur just
like the IR-6. We did not have any whiteout issues or
other indications of issues. Just about everything about
this camera and its little brother the IR-6 have
performed pretty well. Motion blur is there but is
limited and not too bad but probably enough to aggravate
the purists. It does work well for our situation
though.
10-27-2010 update:
We did manage to get a few more videos but due to the
pressure our deer have left the area and we have a very
low picture count at this time. We decided to set up
inside to finish out the battery life.
11-15-2010 update:
Well we can now bring this review to a close with
this camera taking its last picture and having finally
ran out of battery steam. We got a total of 2105
pictures over a 57 day period before we lost power from
the standard alkaline batteries. So we now will call
this review closed.
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