Reconyx RC55 Rapid Fire Camera Review 09-06-2007

Camera Purchased from TrailCamPro.Com

Back when we started to get into this business in a serious manner we purchased an old C-3000 cudde and boy we thought that there could be nothing better. The fast trigger and good pictures made it our benchmark for a while until we discovered its shortcomings in the sensing area. Buckeye then jumped into the market with their super fast trigger time cams and great sensing. We again thought that things were peaked out. We later tested Reconyx’s new cam for the professional folks and had a lot of fun with it also. They later came out with a little cheaper product that we attempted to test but were told that this company had their hands full just selling to the professional and scientific people that they did not need to promote their camera to the trail cam crowd. Things in that company must have changed or maybe some personnel because they now have a couple of really great looking products aimed squarely at the scouting camera folks. We just received our first camera yesterday from a friend and not from the company. This is straight out of the box just like the one’s that would come from Cabelas of Bass Pro. First impression was a box with wings. Dark OD colored plastic case with a patch of camo on the front. This may sound like maybe I was not impressed with my first take. Well, this is a very good looking cam and the wings most definitely have a purpose. A lot of thought went into this case design. The facility and wraparound groove for a Python cable makes it second only to Leaf River for security design. Leaf River has a metal back which furthers its strength. Top front of the camera houses a large IR array that encompasses a group of  51 emitters of what appears to be of both long range and wide angle. Below that is the main camera lens and light sensor. The next thing down the front of the case is the PIR lens. Moultrie took a jump with their double design this year in their lens and Leaf River has their version of a high tech lens that in both cases does an excellent job. This company appears to have taken things to extreme with their design. It looks like it has 11 separate focal points to intensify what ever is being reflected toward the cam. If it works nearly as good as it looks this cam will kick some butt in sensing. To get into this cam there is a single lever on the bottom of the cam which is a latch handle. When it is pushed down a small front door can be removed once the Python is loosened. This is similar to the old cudde case front removable panel but in this case there is a full rubber gasket to keep the cam water tight. Of course I had to inspect the gasket for defects and found one right at the top where the gasket comes together. This is in an area where the front cover fits up into an over hanging lip. There is very little chance that this design would ever leak unless the cam was totally submersed in water. With the front cover removed, there is two slots left and right to accept C cells (3 on each side). In the center is a LCD screen and on/off switch. Below that is the up/down buttons with another button labeled OK  (set). The process of installing the batteries was a little precarious and at first I thought that I was doing something wrong. The first two cells go in easy but it takes a little maneuvering to get the last cell in on each side. I was afraid of doing damage but it does take a little force to get the last two cells in place. Turned the switch on and proceeded with the programming and what a jewel this is. Super simple programming is all I can say. I was able to program everything including the label without any problem at all. At the very bottom of the compartment is the slot for a CF card (up to 2 gig I think but the documentation is very vague in a lot of areas, no spec chart). Two other little things inside the compartment is two small indicator lights that will let you know about low battery and whether or not the card is in use. With all this absorbed and the camera has been fielded, now I have a fault (minor) with this camera. The cam must be broken down and the menu has to be accessed to find status or picture/battery count. Kinda brings back memories of the old Cudde cams that folks loved. When you turn this cam to the on position and “arm camera” comes on, things start to happen fast. Before I could do much of anything with the cam it had taken 52 pictures. I had to take it out of the default 3 shot setting and lowered it to one shot per trigger. This camera just might be one of the best we have tested this year so far. The price is $ 549 and I was told that a $ 100 rebate is also being offered. This price puts it exactly where the Cudde no flash is and I do not have to say anything more about that ill fated cam. One thing that we must stress is we just do not have much of a history on just how good this company’s customer service is and how it operates. We would like feedback from anyone that has experience from them so we can pass it along. This is all new stuff and we will have to learn as we go. So far we think this cam is going to be out front and will be fighting for the top spot with those tuff guys from Buckeye.
 

09-09-2007 update:  We have been told that yes indeed that certain parts were imported but the main board assemblies are US made but from some imported parts which is the norm for most everything today. A CMOS upgrade is definitely in order for this cam, whether or not it is foreign or domestic. We were trying to get a better understanding of this cam and dug into the documentation and when that proved to be lacking in some of the details we were searching for, we turned to the web site and found that it was even more lacking. There is no pdf download for the operating instructions or specifications sheets that we could find. These are areas that probably should also be upgraded by this company.

09-10-2007 update:  It appears the reason we perceived that the camera was oversensitive is that the camera was shipped in time lapse factory test mode.  Rich, from Trailcampro.com (whom we purchased the camera from) mentioned that he had this issue on his RC-55 camera and suggested we might be having this as well.  From what we understand quite a few of these cameras were shipped this way from the factory.  Those who choose to purchase and use one of these cameras may find this happening. Supposedly it is on some of the early models. We were told that a downloadable firmware upgrade will remove the auto time lapse test mode.  Roulette, isn’t it wonderful.

09-23-2007 update:  Things are still dragging on with this camera and will soon becoming to an end. The new pre tested batteries were installed on 09-07-07 and were dead on 09-22-07 a total of 15 days. During that period it took a total of 2902 high rez  pictures. Going through many of the out door forums I began to see where some folks began to experience some difficulties with the LCD not functioning during cold conditions. A trip to the fridge and then back out confirmed that this cameras LCD definitely does not like the cold, and just turns black. I will say that on the way out of the fridge the camera was steady taking pictures even though the LCD had quit. This would probably not be a good cam for you folks that are up north and are presently getting below freezing weather. For us folks in Georgia we may have 10 to 20 days a year where we would have to put it up until things warmed up a little. With the new batteries installed Anthony wants to do some movie and low rez samples before we hang it up.
 

Reconyx RC-60 Digital IR camera review 03/18/2008

Back last year we had the opportunity to review this company’s consumer oriented camera the RC-55. This new camera is basically a carbon copy with some pretty advanced refinements. Last year we stated that “this camera could very well be the best camera that we had tested to date”. The items that took that away were dealing with picture quality and some issues with cold weather function. To reinforce the description of the case described last year we still feel that a lot of engineering went into the case design. I don’t think you could park a truck on it but the design makes it easy to hang on a tree and secure it with a Python cable. The door that covers the controls and memory card slot is also secured by the cable. This is a very good feature. The cable runs through holes under the hanging ears on the camera so that it can not be tipped out of the cable that is securing it. The cable would have to be cut or the camera would have to be destroyed to get the camera off the tree. Picture is last years RC-55 but case is the same for this year’s cam. The technology that has been put together to produce this camera is so good that it appears that some folks way on down the road and across a couple of state lines have also chose this  technology to try to produce a clone in a different case, of course without this years new and protected refinements. Their attempt basically failed and is being reintroduced this year with some refinements of their own. Personally I would just stay with the original folks that spent the money to bring this camera to the market and not deal with what we were told as being a near copy. The MP rating for this camera is 3.1 for both day and night pictures. The night time IR no glow illumination is rated to 35 feet and the pictures are done in monochrome while the day pictures are full color. Trigger time is somewhere around 1/5^th of a second. This is fast enough that we probably cannot test it with our equipment. This is the same situation we had trying to test the Buckeye cams. They use what is termed “rapid fire” which means a frame per second which is near video performance. With a 2 gig card you can expect to get 3 to 5 thousand pictures. The card of choice for this cam is the CF card. It is located in the bottom center of the cam once the removable cover has been tipped out. Access is very easy but seating this type of card must be done with care to assure proper alignment prior to finally seating the card into the pins on the camera. The main guts of the camera are located up through the center of the cam with an area to the left and right for the batteries. The batteries are dropped into a slot and slid up end to end for a total of three “c” cells on each side. There was no improvement in the switch labeling for this year and still remains hard to read during low light conditions. The switches are small for a gloved hand to operate and old eyes to see. For the warm weather operations (down to 20 degrees) the use of alkaline cells is recommended. For colder weather they now recommend the high amp hour rechargeable nickel-metal hydride rechargeable “c” cells. Programming this year includes some pre programmed quick set options.

Steps are as follows:

• Arm Camera-Starts a 10 second countdown to start taking pictures. If this is not selected the camera will arm itself in 2 minutes.

• Walk Test-A flashing indicator will show the PIR sensing zone that the camera is looking at. When set to this option the operator can do the walk test to insure that the desired area is being covered by walking in front of the camera. Once confirmed that the aim is correct you can just walk away and the camera will arm itself in a couple of minutes.

• Erase card-This is an in camera feature to clean the card of all images. Make sure that you do not wish to keep any of the images prior to selecting this option.

• Check status-Gives battery status and amount of images along with available space left on the card.

• Camera Info-Displays camera firmware version plus serial number. (Their web will display any new updates and are user download friendly.

• Quick Set-New for this year and is three pre programmed applications for Trail 3 pictures taken at 1 second intervals with no delay, Scrape 5 pictures rapidfire with no delay, Feeder 3 pictures at 5 second intervals with a 15 second delay.

• Trigger-Allows PIR on/off, Sensitivity settings lo/med/high/very high, Pictures per trigger 1,2,3,5,10, Delay 0, 15, 30 seconds plus 1 minute and 5 minutes.

• Time Lapse-start and stop times,

• Images-Set night exposure time and rez/temp settings.

• Date/time. Code-Loc- set a 4 digit security code if desired.

• User Label-Set your own up to 16 digit label to be displayed on each picture. The picture on the sidebar shows the large ears/handles on each side of the camera. These are designed for bungee hook mounting to the tree. The molded in groove near the bottom is there to accommodate the use of a Python cable through the small openings just under the ears and around the tree for a secure mounting and to help prevent theft. This is just a very nicely designed case and with the broad programming features will just about accommodate any users applications from security to all hunting applications.
   

03-18-2008 update:  Once out of the box and a weather tight inspection began. The removal cover did not seem to seat completely closed. Strips of bond paper put between the door and camera and removed once the cover was latched proved that this setup might leak if submerged.  Hanging on a tree it should never leak with the way the cover is  designed.




The camo color is really nice with its dark green color. The “covert” no red flash is somewhat a mystery as of now. There appears to be only one emitter in the center of the array cover. Shining a strong light back through the cover glass did not indicate anything under the glass that looked like the normal setups that we had previously reviewed. Setting the date time was simple and proceeding through the menus was also simple. Folks should just love this setup if they have a fear of dealing with complex programming procedures that has been seen in some of the early cameras that hit the market. The 3.1 MP color day pictures that I gathered today on my deck showed very clear good color pictures. The night flash range will happen tomorrow morning. The PIR sensor lens is a very nice multi zone design. There should not be any problem with this camera seeing what is coming from the peripheral. On the rear center of the camera is the standard ¼ X20 tripod insert which is very handy for some setups. After we started on the review of the Scoutguard camera, it seems like this camera is a monster. The size is the same as last years but compared to the 5  inch tall and 3 inch wide Scoutguard this camera seems very large. Even with the size this is a super design for a Game camera. Good color and good security features are very important when you hang a few hundred dollars on a distant tree.
 

03-19-2008 update:  I did my flash test setup and spent a lot of time to get different angles because of the new technology I wanted to see just how good this camera operates. I can say without a doubt that what Reconyx has done with their covert flash is far superior to last years attempt at similar technology by another company. The range is advertised as being good to 35 feet. This test showed that 40+ feet was feasible. We do recognize that we have some reflection from the near building but all cams are tested in the same manner so it is fair and equal. In the deep woods I feel that users will be able to see all animals at the 35 foot advertised range. I took the camera from inside the shop and put it out on the stand for the test. The temp shown on the pictures is 73 degrees but the actual outside temp was 59 degrees. I did not leave it long enough to acclimate to the outside temperatures so that is why there is a discrepancy. Sensing range for this 59 degree morning was a constant 45 to 50 feet. It would catch me every time in a very short period. I performed the test with the removable cover off the camera so I could view the card action LED in order to insure the camera was shuttering. With the covert flash, there is no indication that the camera has shuttered with the cover in place. The flash range pictures are very bright for IR and still have that typical degree of fuzziness. This camera just works and works well. So far in this review the only negative has been the slight misalignment of the removable cover. Off to the hill for the long range tests and battery life.

03-21-2008 Update:  It seemed like a year trying to do a trigger test on this camera because of its speed. The advertised speed is very fast. Our test found it to be somewhere under ½ second which when we use their terms is 5 tenths of a second. When we tested the Moultrie IR cameras we found that when shifting to IR the camera’s mechanical filter would shift each time the camera chose to take a picture. With the RC-60 we found that the filter shift clunk only happened once during the transition from day to night and again when it shifted back to day. We have recorded on many occasions where the animals would look toward the camera when this happened. With the covert setup it should not be problem other than the one clunk but there would be no flash indication to further cause the animal to be alarmed. With the speed of this camera we will have plenty of chances to prove this theory. There may be some periods of time during the transition from day to night when the camera will have a problem trying to read the amount of light to decide which application to situate itself into. Once we managed to work our way through all this we moved to the hill for some test pictures. We are starting to have a real problem because with several reviews running concurrently we must make sure that the IR flash patterns do not cross each other, which would give a false indication of flash and picture quality. Having the trend moving to IR flash, a good many of the cams that are here and the ones scheduled in are of this type. Now that the market is pushing all this bio fuel the price of our deer corn is about break the bank. Expanding our testing area is one answer but this also means twice as much feed must be used. Even with the added expense it is still rewarding to work with these cameras.
 

03-22-2008 update:  Pulled our first set of sample pictures off this camera and even set at one picture with a 15 second delay this camera takes one hell of a lot of pictures. In the field we were definitely impressed by the IR light pumped out of the covert system. We have tested many standard IR cameras that cannot match this performance. This is a camera to get excited about but it still has an issue. This is the same issue that was found last year, this is the picture quality, it is far better than most IR cams but still has that minute degree of fuzziness. Most folks would say that it takes super great pictures but we must indicate that tiny problem. It appears that this new covert system will pump out just about as much light as the other competitor’s cam did after they converted from no glow to the red glow type emitters. I do not think that there will be any competition this year for this covert system from anyone else with the no glow technology. It is going to start a lot of folks thinking. We are now in the second year that this type of system came to be on the market. The first year did not go so well but this year things are looking up. The third year might be a flood of new systems. Reconyx has the lead now and will probably keep it until the rest of the industry goes out and develops their own system.

03-25-2008 update:  We should have been further along with this review but we ran into difficulties when we did the new rez setting. After a few days we went and checked and we had no pictures. It seems like the operator failed to turn the camera back on and arm the camera. We just don’t know why this camera did not recognize this situation and turn itself on so the test could be current. These camera companies that build these things and do not put that type of feature into its programming is just not excusable. Well so much for the joke, now that we managed to turn the cam back on the test will resume.
 

04-05-2008 update:  With the operators brain firmly engaged the camera was turned on and the test continued. We put it through a good number of different functions as the sample pictures will confirm. There was not a single glitch with the exception of flash quality when the camera had finally past the 6000 picture mark and the flash brightness started to degrade somewhat. As of this morning we are approaching 8000 pictures (most taken with flash) and it is still going strong on the original set of batteries. The daytime picture quality has remained the same but with the flash becoming weaker due to the battery being around 16% it is still working but definitely weak. The flash quality did not depreciate slightly until the camera had reached the 5000+pictures mark. At the 8000 picture mark the night photos are noticeably weaker but still readable and can still be brightened with enhancement if required. A new set of energizers would put the gas back in this cam's tank in about a minute. We have been closely monitoring the battery level so we can get the official battery life of this cam. We are on the 10 shot feature and we are getting a couple thousand pictures a night and the cam has not died yet. Battery life started [to be determined soon] and was finally dead on [to be determined soon] with a total of [to be determined soon] pictures. This has been an exceptional camera to work with and has been elevated to the Buckeye Cam level with its design and new features. There will not be any competition this year that we can see when it comes to the covert type flash cameras. I wonder if the folks that made the Scoutguard cam could do a no glow? What an idea that would be.

 

04-06-2008 update:  Well we are now past 9000 pictures on the original Energizers and the night time quality is now degraded to the Predator cam level, but the daytime pictures are still pretty good. The last update I left blank spaces for the figures but we cannot as of yet fill them in and with battery levels under 15% this cam is still functioning, but admittedly not very good. Batteries probably need to be changed out when the cam gets down to around 20% which is one heck of a lot of pictures. This is like that ol Energizer bunny it just keeps going and going. For those who need the really good pictures, I would not wait this late in the cycle to change out the cells. I am totally impressed so far with this cam so far. The main thing that I would change is probably to have a little better picture quality. This cam is most definitely a winner so far, I tried to run over it with my truck to test the case but I guess it was a little to far up the tree. This company does offer bear protection with a metal security enclosure for those who may need it, the rest of the security is taken care of with the program and python cable built in groove and case design. We have some varmint holes in mind that we located today to place this cam on to see just what is coming and going out of those holes. First we have to wait for the final breath in order to give the battery life. We may have to wait another week.

04-09-2008 update:  The picture count is up to 12,000 and the battery level is hanging at 15%. The last picture taken was a color day picture and it is still sharp and clear. The beat goes on and on and on.

04-12-2008 update:  We have almost had to take a daily look at this cam because we felt that it would have totally gone dead by now. The picture count has gone up another 6000 and the battery is hanging in at 15%. This makes a total of over 16,500 pictures.

04-19-2008 Update:  I believe we have stretched the battery test to the limit. The picture count is 28,600 but the night pictures with flash are just not readable without enhancement. The day pictures that it is taking are still very good. Most folks would have probably pulled the old cells and replaced them at around the 10000 mark unless the desired pictures were day only.

04-21-2008 Update:  A new set of C’s and this animal went right back to its old self with good clear night time shots. This was just a short test to make sure that the wearing down of the batteries to a low 5% was the cause of the limited flash. Reconyx has proven itself here with this cam. Now off to the field away from the feeder world and see what we can find that we did not know was out there.

05-03-2008 update:  We had a friend who has had some bad luck with his pool and as a result decided to fill it in. I did a setup in 10 shot rapid fire and captured 1650 pictures of the process which took hours. This put together in a fast moving slide show shows the back fill from start to finish. This is a really good camera.

Pool Demolition:  "Time Lapse"


05-17-2008 update:  Two weeks in the field and we could fill a truck with all the pictures, We are totally happy with this cam in most areas except we have noticed that some pictures that should have been taken were not. We studied picture sequence and determined that some shots were missed. The area under scrutiny was one of our feeders that the ring tailed corn thieves have a tendency to climb the ladder and spin the wheel until $20 worth of corn has hit the dirt under the feeder. Sequence after sequence showed the coon at the top of the ladder but in some cases there were no pervious pictures of him climbing there but it showed pictures of him exiting the scene once he came in contact with certain wires around the wheel. We gathered some pretty good day shots of deer and raccoons around the feeder that showed some pretty good color and contrast. During this test we had a Moultrie cam mounted and watching this same area (in video mode) from the side and it would always catch the coons coming but would run out of time before the coons would get to the top of the ladder but the Reconyx for some reason sometimes did not record the animal coming in. We may be at fault with the way we had it set up and the aim may have been a little off, Next week will tell.

05-31-2008 Update:  This was a two week update due to Anthony doing an Evel Knieval jump with his bike and kind of shifted some bones around in his back. We did a careful aim and setup to determine just why we could see animals at the top of the feeder ladder and no pictures of them ever getting there. A close examination of the suspect coons showed they had no wings or any other mechanical device to aid them in a ten foot jump. We pulled this cam and brought it back and had intentions of setting it up with a SG 550 side by side and take a closer look at its sensing. After spending a lot of time devouring the data contained on a sack full of SD cards when we got back we finally pulled that cam out and doubled checked the programming to insure that the sensing issue was other than something we may have over looked during our setup. Well we get blessed with a slight case of the dumb a$$ ever so often. The sensitivity was set to "high" and not "very high" (maximum). Probably the increase in ambient temperature cause a degree of sensitivity loss and the cam was just not see the smaller animals. We will stick it back out tonight and check it out with our urban coons to see how it does. We hope the new sensitivity setting will solve the problem.

 

10-16-2008 update:  We have slammed this cam hung it upside down and around everything that we could find. We gathered a ton of data and the note pad got slipped under the pile and not entered into the review. This is just about a near perfect camera that is until we got our hands on its upgraded brother. The small little Scoutguard cameras have really caused us to like the smaller cameras. This cam is small compared to the Buckeye cameras and has the same respectable performance. We determined that there was no difficulty with sensing and another 20k pictures has shown that we can depend on this camera to do just about anything we want it to do. We are in high hopes that Reconyx engineers decide to shrink things down and still maintain the performance. I cannot see why anyone would be dissatisfied with this camera. 2009 should be very interesting because this camera company moves very fast and does not wait for the next year to bring out a new feature or camera models.
 

Trigger Time is around 2/10th of a second

Flash Range Tests

Sample Photos (2048x1536) Night Mode = Default

Sample Photos (2048x1536) Night Mode = High Quality

Sample photos Low res (1024x768) Night Mode = Default

Sample photos Low res (1024x768) Night mode = Highest Quality

Flash Range progression over time in low resolution: Starting Battery Level at 99% (camera has taken 175 pics at this point) Pics taken so far: 535 Pics taken so far: 844 Pics taken so far: 1078 Pics taken so far: 2617 Battery level at 12% (camera has taken 6000+ pics at this point) Battery level climbed to 15% (camera has taken 8900+ pics at this point in one set of batteries and is still going - pretty amazing) Battery level is now at 6% and the camera has taken over 28,600 photos on set of energizer C cells.  Here are samples of the current picture quality at this point:

Side by side comparison with Predator No Red RC60 Predator Evolution

For everyone who is familiar with the RC-55 and The RC-60 Reconyx cameras, this camera has the same foot print. If you were one of the proud owners of last years RM-45 cameras and loved it then you will get a little wet spot down there when you hear about this one. Reconyx does not fall to sleep at the wheel back at the factory. The wheels are always turning and in most cases that is in the right direction. This camera has been greatly improved over last years camera by many hidden things but the one that stands out is that they re designed the IR array from 50 red glow emitters to 70 Lo Glo red flash emitters. This means that even though the array size has increased, the visible red glow has been reduced by about one third and the range has been greatly increased. They did this in a manner that gives a full wide pattern to the flash and not that typical center hot spot found on some other cameras. There has been a ton of talk on whether or not the flash spooks the game. Well it has been proven a thousand times over that all visible flashes be it, white or red will spook a nervous animal. This company has developed in their RC-60 a fully functional invisible (black) flash camera. The feedback started them looking into just how to make their red flash better in respect to the spooking game issue. They are the first to grab on to the new Lo Glo red flash emitters that have a reduced glow that is still visible to the animals and human but not nearly as bright as before. This new array is supposed to be very good to 60 feet and not just in the center but all the way across the field of view of the camera. Now we have a super good Lo Glo red flash, what else comes in this package, how about a quality 1.3 MP image sensor? This 1.3 thing will probably blow a few skirts up because the trend for the MAX mega pixel thing has got out of hand. Let’s back up and read one word that proceeded image processor. That word is quality. You old folks in the trail cam business remember the old 1.3 Cudde, would you say it had some pretty good pictures? We certainly did and through out most of my reviews you will see that I am not a big fan of the high MP cameras. Most times this is gained through interpolation. That means it is like sticking sponge in a bra. It looks ok but it is not a true picture of what is supposed to be there. Another word here is MONO which means black and white pictures. This is a turn off to some folks but when you can see very sharp and clear black and white images, it can tell you just about everything you need to know about that animal. Let’s think about having those small little files that the 1.3 sensor is processing. This fact of small file size relates to very fast write time which means this camera can take and process 2 frames in one second. Well all this hooey isn’t impressive if the trigger time is a week long. They even looked into this and came up with a tenth of a second trigger time to tell the camera that the animal is there and now start taking pictures as fast and as long as the program will let it. I read on the web site that these cameras are only limited to a 38 gig CF card. So if 15000 of these cameras

 images will fit on a 2 gig card then I would have to get my calculator out to see just how many would fit on a 38 gig card. All of our Reconyx cameras have taken extreme amounts of pictures. We have tested on trail settings and had over a thousand pictures in a week. The PIR sensor does a super job and is advertised to a hundred feet (temp permitting). Getting over 6 weeks on a set of Energizer C’s should be fairly easy and 20,000 images for that time is also possible. I am not going to talk about the case of security because that is covered in all the previously tested cameras and this camera is the same. Now that we have this thing walking on water lets see what happens in the programming. Motion sensor can be turned off (haven’t figured that out yet) and the sensitivity can be adjusted in six steps from low to very high. Being that this camera has no movie mode it will take 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 pictures per trigger (when rapid fire is selected) which can be ran in movie style using after market software. Rapid fire picture interval can also be set from 1, 3, 5, and 10 seconds between pictures. When non rapid fire mode is selected the delay between triggers can be set from no delay, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes. Time laps, rez (high/low), temperature (C/F), Date/time, and the user’s custom label printed on each picture. Programming is easy and straight forward with a single set of buttons. The camo on this camera is not as pretty as the RC-60 but it is still camo and it still has those Reconyx wings so we know it will fly. They offer a very good security box for these cameras and for those who have to leave their pieces of gold strapped to a tree in un safe areas that might be a wise buy. I have kept track of my battery purchases and when I got ready to bring this cam up to power the box was empty again. Over $500 in C cells alone and I had to lay this prize down and head to Home Depot for another chunk of change purchase to make things work. We have to start off with a fresh tested set of batteries that are date marked so we can keep picture counts and battery life data straight. Our short list of acceptable 08 cameras is very short but the Reconyx cameras so far are all on it. I will look hard at this cam but I feel this cam will also make that list. Out of the box and stuffed with six new tested Energizer C cells this camera immediately hit the table at the end of a very dark hall way. I just left things on the initial settings and wanted to see just how bright the flash was. When it fires (and it fired a lot) there is a dull orange glow coming from the array. They say this new array reduces the glow by thirty percent. Well my guess is it is about fifty percent. The only cam that I had handy was one of our Prowler cams and side by side this cam has a much more subdued flash. My feelings are that being this camera has such a fast trigger with no delay and the duration of the flash is so short and subdued the flash is hardly noticeable when it is on single picture and when some delay is programmed in. I walked straight at the camera and it just kept on flashing and I went all the way to touching the camera. I picked it up and shut it down and pulled the card. Hit the card reader in about a minute to see what had happened picture wise. Distant illumination was good but the thing that I noticed is even though I was on top of the camera at the end of this test there was no IR burn. This is kind of cool and makes me want to just leave all the rest of the testing alone and stick this thing in the field and play for a week or so, Its twin the RC55 has exactly the same features as this cam but it also will do color in the daytime. It makes me want to have a stack of both of them. If my Scoutguards were not working so well I probably would. This camera has the words code lock deterrence written in camo right on the front of the camera. This is a nice feature and might just stop someone from going ahead and cutting the cable or tree down to get this camera knowing it would be useless to them if they took it.

09-10-2008 update: We had some approaching bad weather this morning so I had to go out on the job about 4 AM so I could get things finished before the weather struck. This put my flash range testing a little later than I like. The quick test shows that this cam is good well past the forty foot range. This morning was very warm and we had a 76 degree temperature. The sensing range (set on high not very high) was 40 feet every time. I am very impressed so far with how well this cam operates.

09-13-2008 update:  Things kind of went to hell around here because we had so much interest as to what was happening to our friends down close to the gulf and that fellow called IKE who paid all those good folks a visit and decided to take away a bunch of what they worked so hard for. We are thinking about them and hope everything gets back to normal down there very soon. It always reminds me of the fellow on a forum telling a story about after a twister had been in his county and he found someone else’s  tree on his property that still had a trail camera strapped to it. Well let’s get back to our task here. We gathered some sample pictures in the 1.3 setting and they came out very good ( see samples) We had a buck cross in front of the camera somewhere around 6 to 8 feet and this camera managed to take two pictures of him. I searched around to see just what cameras that are around using the 1.3 IR as its max rez. The first one that I came across was the 08 Predator that is color day at a higher rez, but is locked into using 1.3 at night. I think most predator users would throw rocks at their salesman if they put the night IR pictures side by side. Both cams are low glo red flash so the comparison is fair. This camera just does a good job though it is just that old style black and white type. I also liked the day pictures which came out very sharp and clear. This cam with a tenth of a second trigger and no delay, using a 38 gig card could stay in the woods for a long time with its very good battery life. I am very happy with this cam and it is definitely going to be on my list of 08 keepers. Of course if you can afford to use 38 gig cards in your cams you would probably would be using this companies pro model cams.

09-17-2008 update:  Well the batteries showed 9% so we pulled them and put new ones in. The picture count was only just a few. It was kind of a disappointing amount of pictures. We only got 20,000 pictures from this cam for this set of batteries. The last Reconyx we tested we got 26,000 pictures from a set of batteries. Could most folks live with only getting that amount of pictures on a set of batteries? We hope so, this cam is a high output Lo Glo flash and probably uses a tad more juice than its predecessor. A good portion of the pictures were with flash so that also impacts on battery life. Our next test will be with 4000 Ah NiMH C cells to see just how long they will last. They are in the charger being topped off and we will start the next phase soon.

10-04-2008 update: Two weeks ago we pulled this camera off the hill and moved it to the field down south and put it on a spot where last year we had a major scrape. The cam was mounted about 30 inches off the ground and about 15 feet from the scrape. We collected the cards today and spent some quality time going over each and every one. The setup was to test how well a low glo flash camera would do at eye level over a scrape. The first week we had no action the first week but had an 18 wheeler load of does milling around all over the place. During the second week we had old Mr. big come snooping around and re started the scrape and he made a number of return visits and we seen no indication that he even knew the cam was there or that the flash had gone off. This is a very wild area and the deer are hard to fool. I am satisfied that this low glo flash is a step forward and so far it has proven itself. We pulled this cam back in and replaced it with its big brother the RC-60 so that we could put this cam up against the Predator Xtinction in a little side by side testing. The Predator is also a low glow of sort and we call it “slack flash” because it is somewhat different in design but still has a subdued red glow. This cam is going to look like my two year old work Levis when we get done with it because it just seems to fit into about every job we can develop.