2011 Primos Super Model 40 count red flash 7 mp digital camera review

The first sighting of this little camera in the pictures both me and Anthony said “that sure looks like a corn camera” corn being the nickname we gave the LtlAcorn camera. A few days later we are taking one out of the box and proved to be about an inch taller and about an inch wider in size. It does have the three sensors like the corn camera and a similar back end and bottom plate. The 40 count array is at the top with the main lens directly below it. We could not pick out just where the light sensor is but it is not inside the array configuration. Inside the lens area is the IR cut filter and it is of a different style that we had not seen before. It is a tiny glass plate on an arm that looks kind of neat. The camouflage is just on the front of the camera and it is a slightly green leaf fall brown mix that is very nice. The dunk under the sink didn’t allow the guts to get wet as long as it is upright because we could se no gasket on the bottom door. Scoutguard has done this since 07 and all of ours are still out working and have never flooded out. Hidden in a small indent at the bottom is a rubber plug that covers the unmarked external power jack. This looked to be very well sealed so it should not be a problem though we like to see the voltage and polarity markings in that area so the user wont make a mistake when he is choosing an external source for his camera. The battery compartment holds 8 AA cells and is in a double configuration on each side of the SD card slot. Each side holds 4 cells and the plus minus marks are in the door tabs to match the polarity of the cells going in that compartment.

We do not have any documentation for this camera but its setup was very straight forward and we found no surprises. Advertized with a good long battery life and a respectable trigger time and costing $229 in the catalogs. We are going to try to get this on line with what we have so far and we will be posting the specifications and such at a later date. Having the three PIR sensors like the corn camera the sensing is suppose to be very good. There are three resolutions 3, 5 and 7 MP plus video. The tank holds 8 AA batteries and there is a view screen that can also be used as a handheld field viewer. Flash range is rated to 50 feet. The setup allows for stored items on the card to be deleted or saved without having to use your computer. External battery pack called the “steroid” is the optional external battery source for this camera. It is a 6 volt setup designed to use with this camera.

All my initial testing pleased me very much as far as setup and ease of use. Trigger and flash in the lab were good. Moved to the hill we now have a few sample range pictures and please check these out for the examples.

There is a unique mounting assembly that mounts to the tree and the camera slides up into this back pack assembly. There are two little paddles that must be pushed to achieve the camera mounting. This takes a little getting use to but becomes fairly easy to do once you have done it a couple of times. With the camera out of its holder the controls and view screen can be seen. There are two indicators and one is red and the other is green. The red shows PIR activity and the green is shutter and card storage activity. With the back pack set on the tree the aim will be maintained when servicing the camera. The SD card slot is in the middle of the battery compartment which is a hinged door on the bottom. Maximum card size is 32 gig. Once you set the date time and hit run there is a 15 second count down to allow you to leave the area prior to it arming its self. Over all this camera is laid out very well and is easy to use.

06-05-2011 update:  It has happened again and we see that the warranty on this camera is listed as being 180 days with the card registration and 1 year with the online registration. After the stink we saw over another company we are going to let the potential users sort this out. We will say that another camera from this company has a three year period for on line registration. We feel that it may because these cameras are being produced by a different supplier and they just have a different policy going into the deal.

06-08-2011 update:  There was a little smoke rising from the Shenzhen horizon because of the similarity we mentioned to another camera and we received a very nice note stating that the company we mentioned does not and never has authorized or promoted to any company the use of their design. This should solve any confusion about the possible origin of this camera. We did not in any way mean to indicate the source of this camera and was only mentioning the similarities.

07-06-2011 update:  As keeping with our promise of going ahead and publishing results of our tests even though they are far outside the advertized parameters. In this case we have waited to be updated by the company because we found a fault in their advertized trigger time as being very fast (.3 seconds) and we found well more 5 times that figure. We have contacted the company several times but there have been no results so we are unable to complete the review and will close it and publish our findings. See below the results of this testing. This review is closed until such time we maybe see an up date where they have finally addressed this issue.

07-15-2011 update:  Because of some confusion, from where we do not know, the word that this review was done on a preproduction camera has surfaced. This is not the case and this was a post production camera and once we found the discrepancy as to trigger times that fell outside the advertized specifications, we notified the company and stopped the review waiting for an answer as to upgrade for a possible correction. When that correspondence failed to come after weeks we had to fall back on our promise to go ahead and publish our findings and close the review until such time things fell back in line. We now know we have yet another post production (upgraded) camera coming and we then will re open this review and complete the tests.

Trigger Tests ( without flash 1.56s) (with flash 2.06s)

Flash Range (camera only)

Day Range/8 Plate

5mp Sample Photos

Video Samples