Timber Eye THx5.0 IR
  
Battery Holder:
 
SD Card with Trojan:
 |
Please note:
The review below is of the original model we purchased.
Following the original review is the updated review (REVISITED) that
we started some weeks later after getting updated cameras from the
manufacturer.
Timber Eye (or
Remington Ghost)
THx5.0 IR (red)/white flash review 06-11-2008
Way back when I first began
to see a little data on this cam I began to track down the source.
This is a company down in Texas and I made several calls to them to
try to find out more and all about the availability of this camera.
They basically blew me off and would not give me any information.
Later I found that Cabelas was going to
handle this product so I placed an order which got delayed by more
than a month. Well yesterday to my surprise the thing showed up at
my door along with several other cameras from different places. I
pulled it out of the box and my expectations for this $115 camera
were pretty low. My expectations were not very high but I was totally
impressed by the vast array of features stuck in a low cost cam.
Both red and white flash, movie, three delays from 30 seconds to 2
min. and having a 5 MP ratting. It came with a lock, card,
adjustable mounting bracket, and cable to hang it on the tree. The
instructions were some of the best I have seen written. Of the
several cams I had to play with I chose this one to just get a feel
how it was going to do. The programming was super. From then is when
everything just went to hell. The cam would not work in the IR
position, would not work in the movie position, appeared to corrupt
the card which required re formatting, and in the USB setup it locks
up my computer. So its back in the box on
its way back to Cabelas and the folks in
Texas need to go back to the drawing board. I will get a replacement
but as of now I would run like hell if someone tried to give you one
of these cameras.
06-29-2008 update: Our
replacement has not arrived but I have spent a good amount of
time searching the outdoor forums looking for any data that is
out on this camera. It has been mostly negative with the
exception of a couple reviews that are on the Cabelas site. They
both state that this is just the best camera that ever was
produced. It is very strange but both of these reviewers are
just down the road from the suppliers. Could it be they got
something the rest of the folks didn’t? very strange.
07-10-2008 update: Cabelas
managed to accept the return and get another cam back to me
and it arrived just a short while ago. This one out of the
box would not work at all. The plastic casting on this cam
is very crude and things just do not line up as expected.
The battery holder has shoulders that are high enough to
keep the positive end of the battery from hitting the plate.
I found this after determining that the cells were just fine
so something else must be wrong. One of the cells shoulder
would hit the crude plastic area holding the contact plate
in place and keep it from making contact. I slipped a penny
in the space and the cam came on. Programming was a snap, I
chose IR single and I was ready for a quick operational
check. I installed the 256 card that came with the cam and
fired it up and put in the testing lane. I watched the front
of the cam and when the lights all went out I triggered the
can and the IR array came alive. I repeated this several
times and shut it down and pulled the card. This is where
everything went south in a hurry. My computer lit up like
the forth of July and Norton went into full swing.
There was a Trojan Horse (virus) on
that card. I was able to clear the damage and
cleaned the card.
Click here to read Symantec Information on this trojan.
Note: More recently there have been
reports from buyers that there is also a virus on the CDROM
that ships with the product. (07/29/2008)
The Quick check was again repeated and the
results were exactly the same as with the original cam. The
camera will shutter and the IR array goes off but the timing
is off and all pictures came out black. This is the same in
the movie mode, there is no IR illumination. The
incandescent mode did work but the pictures are so bad that
everything is washed out.
I did a quick trigger time and in the
incandescent mode it was over two seconds. This cam is just
about as non functional as you can get. Remington should tie
a knot in someone’s private parts over this mistake. They
have there name on the clone of this cam. I stated before
that you should run like hell if some one tried to give you
one of these, well I mean it. This concludes this review and
please do not ever send me another one of these to review.
07-21-2008 Update: Received a note from the Timber
Eye customer service folks thanking us for the review. They also
said that they were in the process of correcting the issues
found in our review. The Trojan virus is supposed to only be on
some but not on others. So far we have seen it present on 100%
but we have not seen everything that was shipped. We hope that
things get aligned down in Texas and they start to put out some
usable products. We feel that if they were to find another
vendor for their cards and work on the firmware that controls
the IR array timing and figure out what is wrong with the weak
color in the daytime/white flash shots they will have a pretty
good cam. When they get all this sorted out maybe someone down
in Texas will send us a real usable camera and we will do
another review.
07-29-2008 update: This
morning when I made my run through the many outdoor forums
that I screen for camera issues I came across an interesting
bit of information in relation to this camera. We did not
test for this our selves but it was stated that because of
our review on this cam, one of the new owners scanned the SD
card and found no virus on the card but when he scanned the
enclosed CD that came with the camera it had a virus on it.
So now we will have
two areas to look at if we ever get hold of another one of
these cameras.
07-30-2008 update: Well one of Wally Worlds
finest with the Ghost emblem written on the box just
under the word Remington came in through the door
about noon today. This just happened to correspond with a
visit from Anthony who was bringing me a couple more cameras
to do some work on. We installed the Energizers in the cam
and set it down so we could pay full attention to scanning
the SD card and CD that came with the camera. To our
surprise we found no virus on these items which both had the
Remington symbol on them. I installed one of my known good
cards in the cam and tried to fire it up. It was dead as a
door nail. I examined the battery compartment and this
camera also had the crude plastic casting that hit the
shoulder of the left hand battery located just under the LCD
display. The only way I could get the camera to come on was
to again insert a penny between the battery terminal and the
plate. Both Anthony and I ran the cam through a few tests
and none of the IR modes functioned. This is very much a
duplication of the same faults found on all of these Timber
Eye/Remington Ghost cameras tested so far. I spent some
quality time with the sporting goods manager of one of the
super Walmart’s locally and showed him the defective battery
holder and he was not very happy about this product and was
going to have to take some of these issues up stream in
their system. I have now seen cameras from several sources
and none of them worked. Until the folks pull these cams
back and re engineer the issues we would not recommend
anyone to purchase one of these cameras. I sure could have
used this type of programming on those old Cudde cameras
that use to give us a hassle during the programming.
08-11-2008 update: This
update is just going to deal with what I have picked off
our forum and other out door forums. We had one fellow
who had read our warning about these cams having in some
cases a virus on the card and CD that came with the
camera. Well this fellow went out of his way and called
their customer service which told him that all the
information that he was reading on the internet was
wrong and that there was no issues with the camera. He
then fielded the camera for a week and when he pulled
the card to see his pictures his computer immediately
was infected with the Trojan virus that we had warned
about. Further check also found that the disk that came
with the camera was also infected and resulted in a
cleaning operation on his computer. We also had another
fellow who was testing the Ghost in a manner similar to
our tests and he found that his unit also ceased to work
in the exact same manner as all cameras we have tested
to date. The IR flash goes out of sync with the shutter
resulting black night pictures and movies. This issue is
the predominate issue and has been reported many times
on the forums. If anyone receives a report from their
customer service stating that what we have reported is
not valid please mail Anthony or me with the time/date
that the phone conversation took place and to whom you
have spoken and the number that was used to contact that
individual. This type of failure notification should be
of great value to those who are trying to sell this
product and to the consumer who is putting out their
hard earned money to purchase their product. If this
product had flown without issue we would have reported
the exact facts as strongly as we report the negative
issues.
08-12-2008 update: I cant believe that I
have spent another half day working with the issues
involving this camera. There is a string of issues that
are real and now out of the many and now we may have an
answer to at least one. The camera looses its IR flash
capability within a couple days. The first issue that
impacts on this issue is that the camera does not
advance the clock setting while the camera is in the off
position. Lets say that you are getting ready to go the
field tomorrow morning so being the good scout that you
are, you are prepared. You get all your stuff together
and put a clean card and fresh batteries in your cam and
turn it off and place it in the bag to go with you in
the morning. In the morning you are at the property and
pull out the bag and set it up on your trusty old ATV
for the trip to that pre selected tree in the best area
that you wish to survey. You make it through all the
spider webs and vines to the selected area and with the
entire scent control thing you have done, you approach
the tree that you have selected. Out come the bungee
cords and the cam gets armed and hung with careful
attention to aim and the north south orientation. You
exit the area and head back to the ranch to wait out the
week or so to get the results of this trip. Just in gas
it has been a bewildering task. Two weeks go by and you
spend the gas and go through all the necessary scent
control to make it back to the camera. You find the spot
and slip up and change out the cards and head back to
the ranch. Rush into the computer room and slip the card
into the reader now you have a big surprise. All the
night pictures are black and you are pissed. Why in the
hell did this happen? It all boils down to some pretty
sorry firm ware that runs the Ghost/Timber Eye. The
internal camera is the same as the one that Bushnell
uses in their 119305 and they have a way around this
problem. You can program the time that the camera will
be in the IR flash mode depending on what time of year
that dusk and dawn happens. Plus their clock will still
function with the switch off. Let’s go back when Joe
camera user set up for that trip to the field and did
all the prep to his Ghost for the following day trip.
Well his setup to the cam was great. What he didn’t know
is that the clock goes to sleep when the switch is off
and built into his new Ghost camera is a program that is
telling the camera not to function in IR unless it is
between 1930 evening to 0530 morning. Remember Joe
camera user turned his cam off after doing all the
programming and putting in a fresh card in preparation
for the next day’s trip. What happened is he stopped the
clock and the camera was about 12 hours off by the time
he hung it on the tree. Communications with the folks
that are supposed to be on top of this have verified
this. This is a real sorry setup and according to them
will be changed with some type of firmware change. Until
this happens we will still not recommend this camera.
Remember this is just one of the issues and there are
several still pending. Who is going to help Joe camera
user to get back the sock full of gas money and time
this cost. Better documentation is in order when a
product strays out of the normal way of function. We
will remain on top of this issue until we get notified
that things have been fixed. Mean while if you are a
Ghost or Timber Eye owner already set the clock
immediately after hanging it on the tree and hope that
the season is in sink with the dusk and dawn happening
at 0530 and 1930 daily. If it doesn’t then that will be
another issue with this camera. If daylight is slid over
to about 0730 (which it does) then you will have another
two hours of black pictures. Enough said about this
camera because I have already spent enough on this
project to buy me a couple tanks of premium.
08-13-2008 update: We
were asked to remove the warning about the virus because
some percentage of the first lot of cams were supposedly
the only ones shipped with this issue. Well we just
received another verification of a card and disk being
infected and was transferred to the owners computer. The
process of cleaning this off the computer is not fun.
This issue about the virus was presented to the folks in
Texas (Wild Game Innovations) and asked about a recall.
They felt that being the fact that the percentage of
infected camera’s was small they would not deal with a
recall. They said they would give a new card to anyone
who got infected. They also stated that they felt that
all infected cameras have already been purchased. Well
we know as of day before yesterday that was not true.
Now let’s say you were one of the unlucky folks that got
infected and had to spend the time to clean your
computer or pay some one to come and do it for you. You
now have a clean card and a clean computer and life goes
on less a few coins from the old wallet and you can re
deploy the cam. Every thing is now back to normal,
maybe, how about the fellow who did not have virus
protection or it was out dated and did not catch the
Trojan? He is now open to the net and can have his
computer cruised by those sorry SOB’s who put the virus
on the card. Again I will say, if you have one of these
cameras and want to keep it, clean the card before using
it and do not run the disk unless you check it also. If
you do not have proper virus protection on your computer
just do not use this camera or use a known good card or
return it for a replacement from another company or get
your money back. I wonder what would happen if someone
suffered a serious case of identity fraud and lost a ton
of money and it ruined their credit? Would a recall be
in order?
| Trigger Time |
|
|
| Flash Range |
  |
Samples Low Res
|
Samples High res
|
|
Movie Samples |
|
Remington GhostCAMO
(purchased from Academy Sports)
Interior, Exterior and mounting bracket:
     
Durcacell's pos post longer than energizers
$2 security fix for Academy
Sports Remington Ghost with the use of Python cable:
     |
Please note: The review below is of the original model
we purchased. Following the original review is the update review that
we started some weeks later after getting updated cameras from the
manufacturer.
Academy Sports Remington camo Ghost
Red/white flash 5 MP camera 08-07-2008
Ghost; The soul of something dead
believed to be an inhabitant of the unseen world or to appear in the form of
that object.
That is what came out of my little pocket dictionary to explain the words I
need to understand. After all the dead Timber Eye and Remington cameras that
have passed through here It was a new feeling to finally find something that
seemed to return from the dead. The old black Timber eye/Ghost cameras that
we had previously attempted to test has given away to the Academy Sports
camo Ghost. It still says Remington on it but it
is a different animal. Why do I say that? Well this one actually functions.
I caught a glimpse of this camera on one of the forums and the folks seemed
to like it. It is somewhat cheaper than the
wally world version plus it comes in a
very attractive longleaf camo pattern. I
searched out and found us one to play with, hoping that the odds were in our
favor that we would actually find a camera from this supplier that actually
functioned as advertised. Out of the box the camo
front door gives way to the same interior as the other TI cameras that we
tested. Out came the Energizers and a big light went off telling me to stop
and do a little virus scanning prior to continuing. The card was clean. I
went ahead and installed the batteries and that same old battery compartment
gave me the same no function issue as all had done. The penny on the
terminal would have probably worked but I bit my tongue and pulled the
Energizers and headed off to the store for some Duracell’s. The energizer
cells have a short positive terminal and this makes the shoulder of the
batteries hit the crude plastic piece that holds the plates that make
contact with the positive end of the cell. I measured the Duracell batteries
that I had in my re cycle bin and found that the positive terminal actually
sticks out further than that of the energizer cells. So this camera is
probably dedicated to use the Duracell’s only. I wonder if the folks at
Remington have a little stock in the Duracell factory. Once the batteries
(copper tops) were installed the camera would turn on and allow me to
program it. I set up for a series of tests to check basic function and all
worked. I then did the three trigger time tests IR, White flash, and without
flash. I believe that the unofficial times will be less than 2 seconds. I
can’t believe it we are actually going to be able to review this camera.
Rated at 5 MP QXGA which actually means that it is somewhere around 3.2 MP
that is computer doctored to make it sound more than it is. The file size
comes out at the 5 MP size. A strange
findings is the image data (exif) reflects that
the camera used in this cam appears to be exactly the same as the camera
used in the Bushnell 119305, just in a different box and probably guided by
different firm ware. As with all previously tested cameras from this outfit
the gasket that is in the door to keep the water out fell out when the door
was opened the first time. It was all wrinkled up as if the door had been
closed on it when it was twisted. I managed to re install the gasket and get
it to stay in place so I could continue the testing. The adjustable bracket
that comes with his cam was rejected as a bad idea for me. The hardware
store that you must have to use it is just not worth the effort given its
limited function. The degree of tools required to field this bracket makes
it lose its usefulness. The bracket must be put on the tree then the cam
must be screwed to the bracket from the inside which requires that you carry
a screwdriver with you and if you use the lag bolts something strong enough
to get that job done. If you do like me and decide not to use this bracket
then the holes must have a piece of tape put over the holes on the back of
the cam to keep out the critters that want to set up housekeeping inside
your cam. The first sample pictures that I did in the yard showed that the
color is very weak and the pictures lacked a degree of contrast but very
readable. The IR (red flash) pictures were better but still fuzzy. The movie
mode worked but appeared to be somewhat low in quality. This cam if it is
still working will make it to the hill to get the regular sample pictures
and videos as we do with all other cams. For a camera that is just over the
century mark in price it seems to function pretty good. I will try to get
the sensing range done along with the two flash range tests and then get it
put out for a look at the fuzzy brown corn eaters that seem to hang out
around the feeders.
08-08-2008 update: Checked the cam this morning after being turned
off over night and found that the date/time does not advance with the power
turned off. You must reset the time/date every time you turn the camera on
just before deploying it. This would probably be a real hassle on most
cameras but this camera has super simple programming that is easy to do
before closing the door and walking off.
08-09-2008 update: Made the short trip to get this cam over to
Anthony to get the trigger tests done and move it out to the testing
area for some sample pictures. This was a very strange situation. While
doing the trigger time tests, Anthony noticed something floating off and
disappearing. Well it was the soul of yet another Wildgame Innovations
camera that just died. We now know why they chose the Ghost name this
model. We have given an extreme amount of time to this camera in hopes
that the supplier to all these retailers would settle down and get
things fixed. We would not recommend this camera to anyone. Let’s see
what comes out of the clouds next year from that company. They certainly
drew from the toilet this year. These folks do such a good job with
their other products lets hope they get hold of this blunder and get it
fixed and bring it up to the standard of the other products they sell.
08-11-2008 update: This update is just
going to deal with what I have picked off our forum and other out door
forums. We had one fellow who had read our warning about these cams
having in some cases a virus on the card and CD that came with the
camera. Well this fellow went out of his way and called their customer
service which told him that all the information that he was reading on
the internet was wrong and that there was no issues with the camera. He
then fielded the camera for a week and when he pulled the card to see
his pictures his computer immediately was infected with the Trojan virus
that we had warned about. Further check also found that the disk that
came with the camera was also infected and resulted in a cleaning
operation on his computer. We also had another fellow who was testing
the Ghost in a manner similar to our tests and he found that his unit
also ceased to work in the exact same manner as all cameras we have
tested to date. The IR flash goes out of sync with the shutter resulting
black night pictures and movies. This issue is the predominate issue and
has been reported many times on the forums. If anyone receives a report
from their customer service stating that what we have reported is not
valid please mail Anthony or me with the time/date that the phone
conversation took place and to whom you have spoken and the number that
was used to contact that individual. This type of failure notification
should be of great value to those who are trying to sell this product
and to the consumer who is putting out their hard earned money to
purchase their product. If this product had flown without issue we would
have reported the exact facts as strongly as we report the negative
issues.
08-12-2008 update: I cant believe that I have spent another
half day working with the issues involving this camera. There is a
string of issues that are real and now out of the many and now we may
have an answer to at least one. The camera looses its IR flash
capability within a couple days. The first issue that impacts on this
issue is that the camera does not advance the clock setting while the
camera is in the off position. Lets say that you are getting ready to go
the field tomorrow morning so being the good scout that you are, you are
prepared. You get all your stuff together and put a clean card and fresh
batteries in your cam and turn it off and place it in the bag to go with
you in the morning. In the morning you are at the property and pull out
the bag and set it up on your trusty old ATV for the trip to that pre
selected tree in the best area that you wish to survey. You make it
through all the spider webs and vines to the selected area and with the
entire scent control thing you have done, you approach the tree that you
have selected. Out come the bungee cords and the cam gets armed and hung
with careful attention to aim and the north south orientation. You exit
the area and head back to the ranch to wait out the week or so to get
the results of this trip. Just in gas it has been a bewildering task.
Two weeks go by and you spend the gas and go through all the necessary
scent control to make it back to the camera. You find the spot and slip
up and change out the cards and head back to the ranch. Rush into the
computer room and slip the card into the reader now you have a big
surprise. All the night pictures are black and you are pissed. Why in
the hell did this happen? It all boils down to some pretty sorry firm
ware that runs the Ghost/Timber Eye. The internal camera is the same as
the one that Bushnell uses in their 119305 and they have a way around
this problem. You can program the time that the camera will be in the IR
flash mode depending on what time of year that dusk and dawn happens.
Plus their clock will still function with the switch off. Let’s go back
when Joe camera user set up for that trip to the field and did all the
prep to his Ghost for the following day trip. Well his setup to the cam
was great. What he didn’t know is that the clock goes to sleep when the
switch is off and built into his new Ghost camera is a program that is
telling the camera not to function in IR unless it is between 1930
evening to 0530 morning. Remember Joe camera user turned his cam off
after doing all the programming and putting in a fresh card in
preparation for the next day’s trip. What happened is he stopped the
clock and the camera was about 12 hours off by the time he hung it on
the tree. Communications with the folks that are supposed to be on top
of this have verified this. This is a real sorry setup and according to
them will be changed with some type of firmware change. Until this
happens we will still not recommend this camera. Remember this is just
one of the issues and there are several still pending. Who is going to
help Joe camera user to get back the sock full of gas money and time
this cost. Better documentation is in order when a product strays out of
the normal way of function. We will remain on top of this issue until we
get notified that things have been fixed. Mean while if you are a Ghost
or Timber Eye owner already set the clock immediately after hanging it
on the tree and hope that the season is in sink with the dusk and dawn
happening at 0530 and 1930 daily. If it doesn’t then that will be
another issue with this camera. If daylight is slid over to about 0730
(which it does) then you will have another two hours of black pictures.
Enough said about this camera because I have already spent enough on
this project to buy me a couple tanks of premium.
08-13-2008 update: We were asked to remove the warning
about the virus because some percentage of the first lot of cams were
supposedly the only ones shipped with this issue. Well we just received
another verification of a card and disk being infected and was
transferred to the owners computer. The process of cleaning this off the
computer is not fun. This issue about the virus was presented to the
folks in Texas (Wild Game Innovations) and asked about a recall. They
felt that being the fact that the percentage of infected camera’s was
small they would not deal with a recall. They said they would give a new
card to anyone who got infected. They also stated that they felt that
all infected cameras have already been purchased. Well we know as of day
before yesterday that was not true. Now let’s say you were one of the
unlucky folks that got infected and had to spend the time to clean your
computer or pay some one to come and do it for you. You now have a clean
card and a clean computer and life goes on less a few coins from the old
wallet and you can re deploy the cam. Every thing is now back to normal,
maybe, how about the fellow who did not have virus protection or it was
out dated and did not catch the Trojan? He is now open to the net and
can have his computer cruised by those sorry SOB’s who put the virus on
the card. Again I will say, if you have one of these cameras and want to
keep it, clean the card before using it and do not run the disk unless
you check it also. If you do not have proper virus protection on your
computer just do not use this camera or use a known good card or return
it for a replacement from another company or get your money back. I
wonder what would happen if someone suffered a serious case of identity
fraud and lost a ton of money and it ruined their credit? Would a recall
be in order?
09-04-2008 update:
Spent a lot of time scanning again and trying to see if there has been any
improvement since the last report. Well the answer is a definite no
but the report coming from the field from the many dissatisfied owners who
took the number off the box and called to complain found: “Well maybe there
is an update in the wind”. Short of throwing away all previously
manufactured cams and replacing those with a new functional camera would be
the only upgrade that folks should accept. This review is closed.
| Trigger Time |
|
(IR array malfunctioned) |
Flash Range
(white flash) |
 
(IR flash)
   |
Samples Low Res
|
Samples High res
|
|
Movie Samples |
|
Battery Holder mods:  |
|
TimberView
   |
Timberview
1.3 MP white flash camera review 10-30-2008 This
is the little brother to the other Wildgame
innovations cameras. The Timber eye and the Remington Ghost are the same cameras
with a different name on the front. As with the Cudde
Capture this is a very basic camera that only takes pictures and no movies. It
is programmable as far as time and date plus the delay period. You can also
select day only, night only, and 24 hour operations. Out of the box this camera
would not work. I messed with it an hour and finally it did come on but I am
unable to turn it off with the switch. I have to lift a battery to do that. This
will probably change once we get some use on the buttons. The size is about 8
inches tall and 7 inches wide and about two and a half inches thick. This camera
operates off of 4 C sized cells and they are in small slots under the front
cover on each side of the camera. There is a set of switches and a small LCD
screen and a SD card slot. The cost at Walmart is
$50 and it only comes with a couple small bungee cords and nothing else. My
first in house test showed that this camera does work and will take pictures. My
first pictures were about the same quality as the Predator
Xtinction’s pictures. This leaves something to be desired but you can
tell what is in the picture but is somewhat fuzzy around the edges. I am headed
outside to get some full sun shots and then see if anything improves. The
pictures in full sun were not so bad and showed pretty good color. Next I ran
through a series of trigger time tests and they all came out just under two
seconds. This is not as fast as the Capture but it is also less than half price.
The minimum delay is 30 seconds and this can be increased to one and two
minutes. As with its predecessors this camera’s clock stops with the power off
and so there is a need to set the time date at the tree when deploying. I did a
quick sensing distance and was surprised that it would pick me up at 80 feet
most every time I passed and this was done during the daytime with a temperature
of 61 degrees. Looks like this camera might have a place on a tree for a while
on the hill. I will try to get the flash range done in the morning. Spent some
more time screwing with the on off switch and it is working somewhat now. We
will see if it clears up all the way further into the review.
10-31-2008 update: Made it through the flash
range tests and it showed that this cam is good past 40 feet. The main switch is
still giving a little problem but it seems to be getting better. At 41 degrees
this morning I could trigger the cam at 50 feet by just waving my hand. The
sensing zone is narrow like what Cuddeback uses. So far this camera has been
doing things pretty good for a fifty dollar camera. The flash range tests still
show that Predator cam quality, but acceptable for most applications where you
do not need a big degree of detail of an animal out past 50 feet. We will get
this cam on the hill and see how it does against the big fuzzy brown critters.
11-06-2008 update: This little camera
operates off 4 C cells and our first set was installed on 10-30-08 and the
batteries failed on 11-5-08 and it had taken 174 pictures. This is only one week
on a set of batteries. A good portion of these pictures were at night with
flash. We have been favorably impressed with how well the pictures looked. We do
remember it is a basic camera but seems to do well in that respect. Battery life
sucks though. We will try a set of NiMH batteries and try it again. Then try a
set of Lithium cells and see if they do better.
11-16-2008 update: We ran this last week
(7days) and 194 pictures on 4000 mAh NiMH rechargables. This means that it seems
to last as long on rechargeables as it does on standard Energizers. And the
picture count is about the same. This would probably be a pretty decent camera
if we could get a couple weeks battery life because the other function is very
acceptable for the price.
12-19-2008 update: We went ahead and tested
another new set of energizers and tried the battery life test again. This time
we only got three days out of the cells but we had a drop in temperature to the
high twenties and low thirties. We now have adapted a 14.5 Ah SLA 6volt battery
to this camera and have it hung back out on the hill and we will see how long it
will last. I have been asked why spend so much time trying to make this camera
work? And we have to tell the folks that the white flash cameras are few and to
get a good one for a good price would be very nice. The total failure of the
cudde capture with its long lists of issues and failures we could have four of
these cameras for the same price if we can solve the battery lice issue. Keep
tuned in and we will see how it goes.
01-01-2009 update: We are still capturing
pictures and the SLA is still holding. Weather has been in the 20s and 30s at
night so this is a good indication that we may get a little more life than
expected. If we can get 3 weeks out of this battery and a respectable picture
count then we will go ahead and do a formal external battery with proper
connectors and such. Academy Sports has sold this past couple weeks a twin pack
of this camera but increased to 2 MP. This twin pack was under eighty dollars so
that puts the cost at forty dollars per cam. If this works out with the external
battery, then a couple of the high amp hour six volt batteries would keep the
cost for a two cam setup at just over a hundred dollars. We are still having
on/off switch problems exactly the same as we had with the Timber eye/Remington
Ghost cameras. With those two cameras the switches finally wore in and started
working. This so far is about two weeks and 560 pictures. When we returned to
this camera we discovered that it had only taken about 50 pictures this past
week and locked up again so we are now forced to go ahead and terminate this
review and call the external set up a failure and this trouble plagued camera
review completed.
| Trigger Time - a little over 2 seconds |
    |
| |
Flash Range
  |
Samples
    
    
   |
    
  |
|
TimberView 2.0 |
Timberview 2.0 white flash camera (Academy Sports)
12-18-2008 Review
This
time we are going straight to the field and do a battery test. If that fails
this little twin pack will hit the return counter and this review will be
ended. The box has a big 4 week battery life sign on it so we will see.
12-23-2008 update: Well as with the 1.3 the battery life was
3.5 days and 327 pictures. This is totally un acceptable so there is no
use to continue this review. The .3 Timberview is on the hill with an
external battery and we are going to see if it works out with any degree
of success. The pictures (see samples) were not to bad and we sure wish
this cam had worked out because the market needs a good reasonably
priced white flash camera. I will hold these two cameras (the 2.0 came
as a twin pack) until the battery test is completed on the 1.3 and if we
have any good results I might try to hook one of these up and see how it
does.
12-27-2008 update: We started to have
problems with the 1.3 cam with it locking up and we re started it and
went back through the programming and did a restart to see what happens.
It does appear that our hopes for this cam are starting to go away. I
packed up the twin pack and headed back to the outlet and exchanged it
for some green stuff and came on back to the shop. We will continue with
the external setup and if it works, we will report and that procedure
will also work for this camera. We have a number of pictures that we got
while this cam was eating C cells and we will at least post them. As of
now this review is closed.
|
|
