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2012 Bushnell 119512B 5 MP 18 count red flash
digital camera review
This is a grey box and is termed a “land camera”
which is aimed toward security more than
wildlife. This grey box does not bother me
because it is very much a natural color and with
the addition of a little vegetation would hide
very well in the woods. So far we have not been
very impressed with the Keep Time cameras and
their failure rate. This camera appears to be
SOCO mfg. camera. A number of the older Bushnell
cameras were made by this company. Some of which
were rated very good and had some extreme
triggers that impressed many.
This little matt finished grey camera measures four and three quarters
of an inch tall and is about four inches wide.
It sticks out less than two inches. The 18 count
array is at the bottom and the function and
light sensor are contained in the center of that
array. The main lens is above that with the wide
angle sensor at the top. The bottom has a
tri-pod insert and there is strap/cable loops on
the back. Inside the camera door is everything
including the 4 AA cell battery holder, The SD
(up to 32 gig) card slot is just above the
battery holder and the LCD and programming
buttons are at the top. There is a USB port on
the side by the LCD. The back half of the camera
is empty except for a small sponge to secure the
cells when the door is closed.
Programming was very easy and went with out issue. When you turn the
camera on it will say “wait” then the date
indicator on the LCD will flash. You need to hit
the setup button and the camera will say “on”
which is the armed indication. I did my dark
room test and first off I would say that the
array stays on a very long time (about 3
seconds). The trigger time and delay seemed to
be very close to advertized times. The dead
pixel test came out a little speckled. The flash
pictures had good black and white and were
fairly sharp and clear. The outside in fair sun
the color was very good and detail was above
average. I am starting to believe that this may
be a little sleeper and will give us some real
good results. This is a “four banger” and they
still say that you can expect some great battery
life so only time will tell. The Covert CA3.0
was a four banger and it got good battery life
so this little camera might surprise us.
05-30-2012 update:
Just a thought, I wondered what a little camo
would look like on this camera. I took a sheet
of Chucks (Custom1’s) tape and in about 5
minutes I had a little different look. (see
picture) I did not mention that this camera came
with a set of Energizer lithium AA’s, which one
of the four was bad. There was also a 2 gig card
and a screw on type of swivel mount. My first
impression of this mount was that if I taped a
dollar to it and threw it away I would be
loosing about 99 cents. There is also a
programmable burst mode that will do up to a 3
picture set per trigger. For a hundred dollar
camera this camera has many good features.
06-02-2012 update: The
trigger bench let us know that the trigger time
came in at 1.32 seconds for day and 1.25 for
night function. It went straight to the hill
where our resident deer crowd showed up for
breakfast so we should have some sample pictures
very shortly. Day range showed the same degree
of picture quality as my initial tests. We might
be able to gather some night range tests this
evening.
06-03-2012 update:
The night range showed the flash to be good to
40+ feet and the sensing was 45 feet at about 60
degrees. For the price and getting a card with
it and its first tank full of fuel this might be
a pretty good camera. It is definitely better
than the Moultrie LX filter clunk series that
came out this year and cost about the same
price. From what we understand also is that this
is maybe a Sam’s club exclusive although I see
some already being sold on Ebay. Sam’s being
part of Walmart has a very good return policy
should you experience any issues after purchase.
06-04-2012 update:
This little camera is doing a pretty good job
except it has a tendency to have motion blur on
the walking deer at night. I had the occasion to
view the pictures from this camera and the
Primos Ultra BO back to back and of course the
BO with its larger array produced more light
both had about the same blur and picture quality
with maybe a plus going to this camera for the
day time color saturation.
06-13-2012 Update:
For its little one hundred dollar price with
card price this camera has shown that it has
very good value and held it’s own while being
tested along side other more expensive cameras.
The flash is not as strong but for the range
that it does work in it does it well. The Ultra
35 Primos edges this camera out in performance
and was in the spotlight at the same time but we
still liked this little camera. Please view the
sample pictures and videos for evaluation.
06-21-2012 update:
We have made it through all the tests except to
see how much longer this little camera will last
on the 4 standard AA cells that were installed
after one of the supplied lithium batteries was
found to be bad. The over all function of this
camera has impressed except it definitely does
not have the strongest flash. We are closing
this review and leaning it on battery life test
until its tank is empty.
07-14-2012 update:
The needle was on E when we checked and we
managed to capture 4467 pictures and 30 videos
during the 33 day battery life. This test was
done with its four standard Ray O Vac AA cells
and not the Lithium that was shipped with it.
This battery life would probably be double had
those cells all been good out of the package. We
had to substitute the standard cells once we
found the bad cell in the package. This review
is closed.
Trigger Tests
(without flash 1.32s)
(with flash
1.25s)
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