Trigger times were done many times because I started to see a variable times come up. Most of the time the camera would trigger at just over 4 seconds and once and a while it would be near 5 seconds. This test was done in the fast setting. The minimum  delay is suppose to be 1 minute but I could never get it that low. It continually took an additional 15 to 20 seconds, so the delay time is more like just under 1.5 minutes.

Trigger time with flash is 3.5 seconds

Trigger Time without flash is 3 seconds

Flash Tests

Sample pictures Warning these photos are huge!  if you have a slow connection you may have a long wait.

1.3 megapixel

2.1 megapixel

3.1 megapixel

6.3 megapixel

Note to all Leaf River users:    When the camera is first turned on and placed in the fast mode it is actually still in the battery save mode (slow trigger) until the camera has been triggered one time then it will remain in the fast mode until the operator chooses to turn the camera off. For those who wish to have their camera in the fast mode for that first actual trigger, they must force a first trigger prior to leaving the camera. What this means when placing the cam in the field the operator must stay the interim period then cause the camera to trigger at least one time prior to leaving then the camera will remain in the fast mode.

06-10-2008 Update:  Forty seven tools and a hacksaw was required to open the bubble pack that the cam came in. I have heard of child proof but this thing was old man proof. Finally out of the box I began to survey just what had changed in appearance from all the previous models. The selection of camo is just great. I took it out and hung it on several different trees from pine to oak and the blend for this time of year was very good. The front of the cam has a few different humps and bumps along with the new IR array and its location. At the bottom front is a tiny Pontiac grill looking hole that is the port for the sound to migrate into the cam for the audio recording. The over all measurements remains the same as before and that is about 6 ¼ inches wide-7 ½ inches tall-5 ½ inches thick. This being a red flash cam the IR array glow can be seen by both human and animals when triggered. This in some cases has spooked the animals when placed at or near eye level. The actual flash cannot be seen by the animals just the glow from the array. With the door open there is two sections. The cam and detector section is on the left and the battery compartment on the right. The left side is divided into two sections. At the bottom is the motion detector section and at the top is the cam portion. There is two ports to the left which are the TV out and the other is the USB port. On the right side is the SD/MMC slot. The four main buttons are the work button which controls the camera operation times like day only, night only and 24 hours. The quick shot button controls a 1,2,or 3 shot without delay, then the cam must take a delay to write to the card which is about 20 seconds. If motion is still present then the cam will go through the sequence again. Once your choice is selected the OK/DEL button must be pushed to enter that function. The next button is the Pause button which can give you a delay period of between write time and 60 minutes. When you select zero delay the cam still must have time to write that picture to the card and that has proved to be between 14 and 20 seconds depending on the file size (day/night/amount of color and such). Again once you have made your decision as to which delay period you wish then push the OK/DEL button to record that mode. The CAM/PW switch is the camera power switch which must be pushed to turn the camera on when programming is being done and must be turned off when finished with the programming. Once pushed there is a tiny led just above the SD card slot that will com on and once it goes out the programming of the camera can be done by hitting the preview button then the up/down/right/left buttons become active once the center mode button has made a selection. This area works like most every digital cameras. Above is a speaker and mike with a sound button which is selected if you wish to record notes on the DVR about location or situation prior to the pictures or movie that will be taken once set out. All of the camera programming will be displayed on the view screen which is just to the left of the buttons. Way down at the bottom is the PIR sensitivity dial which for this time of year we must keep it on max. Once I began to try the programming of this cam without the use of the instructions, proved to be basically like all the previous LR cams we have tested. Things like having to hold the pause button for three seconds to enter the video mode and using the same button to set the length desired length of each clip from 3 to 90 seconds. Way down on the outside bottom is a small port labeled IR booster. This is not an external power source port. It is for the optional IR extension illuminator if needed.

Now that I finally made it through the programming I did a quick setup to get the feel of the camera. Judging from when the array came on it looked like the trigger time was pretty quick. I got fooled by this one time before because the array came on and then much latter the picture was shuttered. We can only tell the trigger time buy putting the cam on the test bench with its clock. I quickly went to check the pictures on the card. There was not any, so what now, I selected another card and did the test over and still no pictures recorded to the card. I then took a new card and inserted into the slot and worked it in and out a number of times because we have found that some of these card slots need to be kinda broke in. This worked and now I am getting pictures. I set up for the flash range and sensing distance tests last night and this morning about 4 AM when the temperatures were the coolest (74 degrees) I did the tests. Anthony was not real happy with the flash pictures so I will re do them again in the morning. The sensing range proved to be around 35 feet for this very warm morning. This will be long review because we have been hit with several cams to be reviewed in a matter of the last two days. Small things like the internal flash button and such are described very well in the booklet that came inside the old man proof box. I took my light magnifier and went around the red rubber seal that is in the cam lid to see if there were any areas that might possibly leak. I found none. I do not know if the little sound port would leak if submerged but the way it is designed you would have to have a hell of a lot of high water to find that out. The next process is to re do the flash range tests and get ready for the trigger time test. My old clock isn’t set up like our official clock but it gives me pretty constant findings and allows me to pre announce the approximate trigger time. Out of over twenty attempts with flash on and in the fast mode I saw a pattern of 1.5 seconds trigger time. This is pretty respectable and will most definitely do in most every situation that you need to use a trail camera for.

06-12-2008 Update:  Well folks LR has crossed the line into fast cams. The daytime without flash is at the one second level and the night time with flash is at the 1.5 level and we now in the process of finding what the battery saver times will be. Just got the with out flash and the battery saver mode comes in at 2.5 and with flash is 3.0This has raised the bar of performance of Leaf River for this year. Even having under a three second time is more than enough to qualify this cam for most applications except were the animals are in an extreme hurry. With a movie mode with sound will bring this cam to a level above a lot of the competition. We have always liked these cams but now we will probably really like this cam. What it does now on the tree is the next test and as of now that is where it is at. On the down side is that we wish the documentation was a little better because we are finding some holes in some of the way that the operations is handled in writing. We have no problems though in the actual programming.
 

07-31-2008 update:  We had to pull one of our IR cams in progress which opened up a hole on the hill so we can go ahead with this review. Hopefully we can wrap this review up by the time that the pulled cam comes back from the factory with a new piece of glass. Sample pictures should be rolling in very soon.

08-01-2008 update:  We saved a few pictures from this camera that were taken prior to its trip back to the big guy with the screwdriver at the factory. Once back it got stuck on the hill in the space that was being occupied by one of the Buckeye cams that had to be returned for a new lens. All I can say by my first glance at today’s pictures is wow. I think we have our hands on one he__ of a camera. We are going to give it another day and post both day night pictures.

09-12-2008 update:  We had a lot of fun with this great camera getting all the sample pictures in all the rez settings, then we gathered some quick videos. Being we have so many IR cams in progress we have put things on hold but three weeks ago we set up to take this cam down south and put it out in a trail configuration near a swamp. We made our way to the back corner of the property and pulled the cam out stuffed with fresh batteries and then we opened up our memory card box looking for a 2 gig CF card to put in the cam because we were needing to gather some movies and get some of the swamp sounds with the pictures. Well we did not have anything except a small 256 and that would not due for a two week stay so we were forced to bring the cam back to the shop. We searched found that somehow our set of CF cards has somehow got misplaced so we could not find any. Now we were forced to order new 2 gig cards and this took another week to come in. This ate up another week but we finally made our way to the back corner and proceeded to setup and deploy the cam. I opened up the cam and checked the program and then grabbed a new CF card and that’s when we found that we had suffered another aggravating senior moment. We now remember that Leaf River had changed to SD cards this year. We now have a good supply of un used CF cards. We did have several 2 gig SD’s with us and the cam got put out. With the storm coming into the gulf we may not be able to get back to the property this next Saturday to gather the long anticipated videos. Fact is this cam is certainly working better than my old brain.