2012 Wildgame Innovations Red 2, 4, 6 Enhanced red flash camera review’s

This set of cameras is the standard case style and not what they call the “Micro series”. In general appearance (off position) they appear to be the same except the Red 6 has a higher count array. The other difference in appearance is the 2 has a white on/off button and the 4 has an orange on/off button. The higher rated 6 has a green on/off button along with the 30 count array. Now hit the power button and then observe the LCD and you will see that the goodies increase as the MP ratings go up by what is displayed there. Because of the similarities we are going to group these into one review but separate all the pertinent areas. This series of cameras are in the square larger box that measures about five inches square and are two and a half inches thick. The array is at the top front and the main lens with indicators just below. The programming LCD is at the bottom with the colored on/off button just to the left of that. There is an external battery port on the right edge of the case. There is only bungee/strap loops on the corners and no back strap loops. The bottom has a drop down door where the control buttons are located along with the 4 C cell battery compartment and SD card (32 gig) slot. Battery life on all three cameras is rated up to three months. 

This year they have some additional features that will appear on all three of these units. First is the “REDUX” feature which is their version of anti blur technology. And next is what they call “Flextime” which is their version of time laps and time laps plus PIR function. They have also a supplied disk with their time laps software for scanning your TL captures. There is no built in security incorporated into these cameras. The flextime feature has to be first selected under the “trigger” option prior to advancing to the flextime selection. One minute is the minimum delay in this option and the camera must be deployed for at least 48 hours to climate the camera to the day/night cycle. Expect high battery use during this option. 

1. Red 2 Enhanced is a base 2 MP picture only camera and no video. It also has the time lapse feature. The delay only goes down to 30 seconds and you can select day/night operation or 24 hour full time function. Flash is 18 count red and rated out to 45 feet. They also say a one second trigger time and my initial observation is that it is close to that. The delay seemed to be around 25 seconds unofficial also. First out dark room and good sun tests show the picture quality is pretty good.
2. Red 4 Enhanced is a step up and does both still (fixed 4 MP) and video. The same Flextime time lapse feature is also incorporated. The motion blur technology is the same as the 2 series Delay is also 30 seconds and the 18 count array is rated to flash out to 55 feet. This is kind of a mystery because the 2 series also has the same array and it is only rated out to 45 feet, so we will have to try to determine what the difference is. Delay and trigger times seem to be pretty close to advertized values. The dark room and outside tests show that the picture quality is not to bad and fairly sharp.
3. Red 6 Enhanced moves up in features by several things. It does both still and video along with time laps. The nice thing is the lower delay that is down to 15 seconds. The sensitivity is adjustable and you can also select the wide picture feature. The still pictures can be programmed in three resolutions. These are 6, 4, and 2 MP’s either standard of the cropped wide picture format. The Flextime time laps and TL+PIR feature is also available through the programming. The dark room and bright sun initial picture tests came out a little disappointing. The color saturation was weak and there was a good degree of fuzziness. The 30 count array is rated out to 65 feet of flash range.

06-19-2012 update:  We breezed through all the trigger tests and found that all cameras fell right at the one second time with the R6 coming in just under that figure. All the sensing came in at 50 feet at a warm 78 degrees. The two bottom cams seemed to have a little better picture quality but the flash range was stronger with the R6. Across the board we found that none of these cameras have managed to disappoint us being they are in the $100 or less cost category.

06-23-2012 update:  Still catching a lot of pictures and we have been able to judge most light conditions and the two cheaper cams still seem to have a tad better picture quality. All have worked without issue.

06-30-2012 update:  We are still getting a ton of great pictures from these cameras but mixed in there are those that were snapped during some movement and this has resulted in that blur issue every now and then. Over all the function has been very good but you still have to wonder what is happening to this redux function that is suppose to be reducing this blur factor.

09-14-2012 update: The first to finish the battery test is the Red 4 camera which gave us 5517 pictures and 52 videos lasting a total of 76 days. We will continue to monitor and record the last two cameras and give that report as it happens.

11-08-2012 update: The R2 gave us 7924 photos over 19 weeks.

12-01-2012 update: The R6 gave us 4418 photos and 120 video clips over 21 weeks.

Red 2 Red 4 Red 6 Trigger w/o 1.29s 1.00s 0.89s Trigger with 1.29s 1.39s 0.76s Day Range Night Range Dead Pixel Specs

Sample Photos HIGH - Red 2 Sample Photos HIGH - Red 4 Sample Photos HIGH - Red 6

Video Sample (day only)