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2012
SpyPoint BF-7 46 count black IR 7 MP digital camera
review
The very familiar IR-6 and 7 that many found appealing is now upgraded
for this year. Those features that were deemed negative
in the previous models has been attended to and we will
see just how well they work this year.
The big issue was of course the delay having a minimum of one minute.
This is still the case for normal operation but they
have added a method of lowering it to 10 seconds. This
is done by turning the camera off and holding down the
up button and then turning the camera back on. This will
change the minimum one minute down to ten seconds. They
have also added sound recording (be sure to open the
rubber plug for this) and the now popular black IR
flash. At this point we are calling it black IR until
that feature is fully tested and we will see if it makes
the true black flash category or will be in the low glow
category.
They still use the same camera in the box design and upgraded the latch
that holds the camera in, to prevent the inside unit
from falling when the box is opened. This kind of year
to year upgrade keeps their cameras out front of many
because of the attention to detail. Both Moultrie and
Stealth seem to have slipped somewhat in this category.
A good example is last years Moultrie mini cameras had a
very good high grade image sensor but they seemed to
have dropped down to a lesser quality this year and that
is reflected in the poor picture quality.
If you just go through the programming procedure (switch), you can see
that sensing, burst, video length, and resolution are
all adjustable. This on top of it being classed black
flash and selling for what we understand of about
$199.99. That is hard to beat when coupled with first
class customer service. The array grill that breaks up
the array pattern has the same camouflage as the case
and this is a big plus because this being a black IR
camera the emitters hide very well behind this grill and
makes the camera harder to pick out when deployed. The
blacked out PIR lens is also a nice touch.
Here are the specifications:
Photo
recording:
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Photo resolution 7 MP
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File format JPG
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Multi-shot Up to 4
pictures per detection
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Stamp Date, time,
temperature and moon phase
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Capture mode Color by
day, black and white by night
Video
recording:
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Video resolution 640 x
480
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File format AVI
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Sequence length
Adjustable from 10 to 90sec
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Capture mode Color by
day, black and white by night
Sound
recording:
Automatically recorded in
video mode
Memory
storage:
SD/SDHC card up to 32 GB
(No internal memory)
Viewing:
Power
supply:
(accessories sold
separately, see “Options”)
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Alkaline or lithium
batteries 6x AA
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Lithium battery pack
Rechargeable battery pack (LIT-09/LIT-C8)
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External (12V jack) 12
volt battery (KIT-12V/BATT-12V) /12 volt adapter
(AD-12V)
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Solar panel Solar
panel (SP-12V) combined
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with rechargeable
battery pack (LIT-09)
Detection
system:
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Motion sensor PIR
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Detection angle 30°
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Detection range
Adjustable from 5 to 50ft
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Delay between each
detection Adjustable from 1 to 15min
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*Additional 10 sec.
setting (see DELAY)
Night
time illumination system:
Optical
field of view:
50°
The next step will be all the general testing and report then off to the
lab for trigger evaluation. Once we get done with that
we will get the range testing done.
05-05-2012 update: The first act in the lab
was to see about how well this company managed to get
their act together when it comes to producing a black
flash camera. After a couple hours in the dark room I
can probably say that we are going to have to class this
camera in the true black flash category. I can see the
flash go off but only a very short distance and that is
not easy. The 10 second can be achieved by holding down
the up button and turning the camera on. This tested out
to be very close to the 10 second mark. Of course this
setting will cause many more pictures to be taken and
the result of that would be somewhat shorter battery
life. Initial testing went very well.
05-12-2012 update: Seems the flash range is
still keeping very much like the tiny and HD-12 with the
50 foot range. The day pictures came out very good but
the night black flash pictures had the normal degree of
fuzziness most BF cameras seem to have. View the sample
pictures below that were taken on the high setting.
07-14-2012 update: We have brought this to
the end with the battery life lasting about 70 days and
during that time we captured 3681 pictures and 132
videos. We also tested the trigger to video trigger time
which came out at 2.78 seconds. This has been a great
camera to work with and we are now going to close this
review.
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Trigger Tests
( without flash 1.62s)
( with flash 1.64s)
Video Trigger Test
2.78s
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Dead Pixel
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Flash Range
Day Range 8 Plate
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Video Samples HIGH
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