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Spypoint Camera Review Page |
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Spypoint Camera Review Page |
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 SpyPoint IR-A http://www.ggtelecom.ca/EN/produits.html
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Spypoint IR-A Digital Surveillance Camera Review My mother was born in Canada so I can personally vouch that there are some real good things that come from our neighbors up north. Out of the box we see many similarities that seem to belong to the Leaf River cameras. The over all look and the metal brackets on the back of the camera seem to be a near copy. Inside the camera there is also some similarities to the switches and dials that is similar to that of the Leaf River cams. The large loops on the sides of the cam and metal rear bracket that would facilitate the use of the Python Cable are a welcome feature. The large IR array incorporates long range, medium, and wide angle emitters. Inside there is a series of switches for programming and the typical 4 button setup to set the date/time function. The mode switch selects between picture and video plus test and view. The work switch selects day only, night only, or 24 hour operation. The delay switch selects the period of rest time between images. The fastest delay is 10 seconds followed by 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, and 30 minutes. The 10 second delay is a great feature that is not seen on many cams. The multi-shot switch sets the cam to take a second third or fourth picture every 20 seconds. This switch also is used in the movie mode to switch the movie length between 10, 30, 60, and 90 seconds. Then there is the Leaf River type dial that can be adjusted for PIR sensitivity. There is a SD card port that accepts up to 1 gig cards and a USB port when the need to see what is in the 16 MB memory. This is another cam in the door camera and for those who read a lot of our reviews you know this is not one of our favorite designs. The case comes with a nice camouflaged look and the loops for the included strap also goes through the metal bracket on the back of the cam which is a good feature. To battery up this cam it takes 6 C cells and this time we chose new energizers (pre tested) and will run them until they go dead for our battery life test. Another great feature is the external battery port that will take a good 12 volt SLA and keep this thing running a long time. The cable is sold as an accessory but is less than $10 dollars. This cable should be of interest to many Stealth and Moultrie users. The High rez setting (set with time/date buttons) is 3 MP and the low rez setting is 2 MP. Movies are recorded at a 320X240 resolution. With the new energizers installed and the program firmly stuck into memory I proceeded with a few in house tests. It appears that it takes about 5 seconds to fire the IR array. Having only to wait 10 seconds to fire it up again was really nice. When this array fires up it is like a spotlight. The array’s red glow is very predominating. It seems like one might have a hard time hiding this cam, without giving away its location when triggered at night. It appears to do a good job of illuminating and tomorrow morning I will be putting that to the test. Documentation is a small fairly well written booklet that is easy to follow but because of this cams design we did not have to refer to it at any time to do the programming. This is a real simple, logical camera to operate. The case passed the leak test and close examination showed a pretty large rubber gasket in the door slot. The latches are very much like those on all Stealth cams and locks up very tight. No weep holes in this case for the little critters to walk through and set up house. The PIR lens appeared to be a little warped and had some minor scratch in it when we took it out of the box. We hope this does not bother the over all function. Next will be the sensing rang and flash range testing then we will put it on the trigger time table before sending it off to the hill for some sample picture and movies.
09-01-2007 update: Pulled this cam out for testing this
morning and seen that the temperature was just over 70 degrees. The
flash range tests were just a pure pleasure to do and it was over in a
short period because of the 10 second delay period. This test showed
that this large array would push light past 40 feet. I then performed
the sensitivity test with the PIR sensitivity dial on max and the cam
would pick me up at 30 to 35 feet repeatedly. Again I noticed while I
was down range of this cam as to how much red glow was coming from the
IR array. This might be a little much and because of this I would
probably try to mount this camera well above the animal’s eye level and
have it looking down at the target area to keep from spooking that wary
old buck. The pictures of the flash range tests were a little washed
out, but totally readable. During our poll on IR camera pictures I
noticed that those pictures that were picked as best were the pictures
that the black in the pictures was actually black and did not have that
slight gray tinge to them. I was curious to see if the delay period was
actually 10 seconds to have the cam to write to the card and get ready
for the next picture. Repeated tests showed that the delay period when
set to 10 seconds was actually 9 seconds. This is very impressive for a
3 MP cam. I wonder why a lot of our domestic cams choose the minimum
delay of 1 minuet for the same MP rating cam. If the trigger times and
field testing prove successful, this is going to be a pretty good cam.
My old brain is already seeing a side by side with an I 40 and a I 450
somewhere down the line. On to he next phase doing trigger times and
movie and picture samples.
09-01-2007 update 2: Hauled this rascal out to
Anthony’s and stuck it on the trigger time stand and proceeded to do
the tests with flash and without flash. First results were not very
believable so we began a series of repeats to see if the numbers
fell in line. It appears that we have a pretty solid 2 second
trigger time in both modes. We are now raising some eyebrows, 2
second trigger and a 10 second delay, a decent camo case that is
water tight and external battery port. It is doing everything we
asked it to do and doing it fairly well. Picture quality is a bit
lacking but very readable, the overwhelming features would probably
put this cam in a category of being a pretty good buy when it
becomes available.
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http://www.ggtelecom.ca/EN/produits.html
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Spypoint IR-B 5 MP red flash IR camera review 08-05-2008 Last year we were fortunate to test the first camera from this company and we were pretty impressed on just how well they did for a first year camera. The have got their feet wet in the market now and this year they have a couple new cameras. This camera is the IR-B and its big brother will be tested next is the IR-C. My first comment is that this is a very good looking camera. It has a brown bark looking camo and a neat finished look to it. The case is about 3 ¾ inches deep and 6 ½ inches wide with a height of 8 ½ inches. The main lens is centered near the top front and just below is the large bow tie looking IR array that incorporates both narrow and wide angle emitters. The PIR sensor is just below the array and the way it is balanced out it is very attractive. This is another cam in the door configuration with the latches to the right side of the cam. The back of the camera has two metal pieces that very much resemble those of the Leaf River. These brackets will insure that the cam has a good solid mount when deployed. Centered at the bottom edge of the camera is the external battery port. This port can be used with the optional 12 foot battery cable. The price that was first talked about when I first saw this camera mentioned was $200 but now that it is out they are asking $250 for this feature loaded camera. Lets open this thing up and see what is inside. The first thing that stuck out is the complete (with no gaps) red vinyl seal that is all the way around the door. No weep holes here for those pesky ants to think is the entrance to their new electronic home. The left side of the door has the SD card slot (up to 2 gig) and the USB and TV out ports. The main camera programming panel has the on off switch at the top left with the LCD just to the right of this. The 4 menu buttons to set date/time are just to the right of the LCD. These are the standard menu, up, down and set buttons for date/time setting. All the other programming is done with a series of switches (total of 4). The first is mode which switches modes of photo (still), video, test, and view. The next is the work button that selects day/night and 24 hr operation. The Delay button is next and has 6 settings from 4 seconds on the top and 30 minutes on the bottom. The Last is the Multi shot 1, 2, 3, 4 settings and if the video mode is selected it adjusts the video length from 10, 30, 60, 90 seconds. The PIR sensitivity is adjusted with a rotating Knob. Below all the switches, panel, and sensitivity knob is the battery compartment that is going to take some special explanation. There is a 4 3/8 X 3 ¾ inch plastic removable panel that accesses the battery compartment. Inside the battery compartment is the springs and plates to accept 6 C cells which is how we are testing the camera. If you should choose, this company has optional rechargeable lithium batteries that will also fit this chamber. There is a plug at the bottom of the battery compartment that would be used to plug into the lithium battery should you choose to use them with this camera. Now here is what is neat, if you choose to use the Li battery in this cam then you can also use the optional solar panel to keep it topped off. The port at the bottom of the case is where the panel would plug in if you choose to go this route. One fault I found is that the plastic cover over the batteries does not hold well and with the door open and the cam gets a bump the batteries will fall out. One nice thing is that you don’t loose date/time or any programming when this happens. I did the flash range test this morning and I feel that no one will have a problem with the amount of light that comes from this camera. With this being the case, things at close range have a lot of IR burn. So when deploying this camera, do not put it in close where the night time animals will be up near the camera. The 4 second delay made doing the trigger time and flash range testing a snap. The unofficial trigger time came in at 4 seconds (with flash) which blew me away because last years camera had a 2 second trigger time. This is not good and really takes away from a really excellent camera design. Sensing range was 30 feet for this 72 degree morning. Should the peripheral sensing prove to be good then we could probably live with this slow trigger. This is a big letdown for me and I hope the other features will make this camera fit into what other folks expect in a new camera purchase. Off to the hill for some sample videos and pictures. 08-10-2008 update: Put the camera on the hill at max rez (5MP) and were able to capture a few pictures. The color day pictures are very good and the pure IR pictures where the target animal is not to close to the camera are very good also. The problem comes when the transition from day to night and from night to day. This camera will start taking pictures that one will be a whiteout (flash going off) and one dark (without flash) this will continue until the camera finally decides that it is either day or night and then it will have very sharp and clear pictures. Most every camera we have tested to date have had this problem to a degree. The factory folks felt that our trigger time tests were not correct. They felt that the time according to their tests should be around two seconds. Well the tests were performed by two different individuals on two different clocks and the results were exactly the same. This may be another one of those post production cases where things are not the same as the pre production models. 08-11-2008 update: Because of the discrepancy in our trigger times and the ones that were done at the factory the folks up there want us to return the cameras so they can take a look at them. They are boxed up and waiting for that big brown truck. Review is stopped at this point until the replacement cams arrive.
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SpyPoint IR-C http://www.ggtelecom.ca/EN/produits.html
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Spypoint
IR-C 8 MP red flash IR camera review 08-05-2008 It is nice when I have just finished the little brother to this cam and much of what I have written will also apply to this camera. All the dimensions and camo color is the same. All the data about the battery compartment and all external ports is also the same. Now view the difference between the IR-B and IR-C. Please refer to the above review on the IR-B for all the mentioned similarities. Instead of the series of switches this cam uses one slide switch labeled photo, video, test, set, and view/TV. Above this is a view screen that displays every thing that deals with the programming. There is a set of three button to the right of the screen that controls your selection. These are the up/down and select button. This screen can also be used in the field to view images that have been taken. Move the slide switch to the set position and use the buttons to toggle through the settings and the up down buttons to make your choice. Once you make a change then hit the OK button and your selection will be programmed in. This camera has a quality setting and this is where you select the desired MP setting between 3, 5, and 8 MP. The delay settings are the same as the IR-B and I selected the 4 second setting for my tests. There is a distance dial like the IR-B and this is the PIR sensor sensitivity adjusting knob. I am now going to have to sneak up on the trigger time bench and see what I can do with an unofficial test. Well that went well but the outcome was disappointing. I am going to say that this cam does an unofficial trigger time of just over 3 seconds with flash. The test went smooth as greased lightning. The 4 second delay and what appears as very good sensing allowed the test to be completed in a few minutes. I have spent as much as 6 hours trying to just get a usable trigger time. I hope the without flash tests come out somewhere around two seconds and this cam will become a keeper. Security has gone down since the original camera. The holes for the python cable are no longer used. A double wrap through the back holes with a Python cable would probably work. 08-11-2008 update: Because of the discrepancy in our trigger times and the ones that were done at the factory the folks up there want us to return the cameras so they can take a look at them. They are boxed up and waiting for that big brown truck. Review is stopped at this point until the replacement cams arrive. 11-08-2008 update: Since back in August we have had a number of mails back and forth and finally the factory folks began to find out that our findings were correct and they went to work on some serious corrective actions. It has been a long hard haul for them but we were notified that they have concluded their upgrade process and let us know that they were not able to achieve the trigger times that they wanted but did get it adjusted down to a sub 2 second time. We have UPS notification that these two cams will be here from Canada Monday and will get them back into the review. These two cams have been chosen for our long term testing so we will be reporting more through out the next few months.
11-08-2008 update: Since back in August we have had a number of mails back and forth and finally the factory folks began to find out that our findings were correct and they went to work on some serious corrective actions. It has been a long hard haul for them but we were notified that they have concluded their upgrade process and let us know that they were not able to achieve the trigger times that they wanted but did get it adjusted down to a sub 2 second time. We have UPS notification that these two cams will be here from Canada Monday and will get them back into the review. These two cams have been chosen for our long term testing so we will be reporting more through out the next few months.
11-16-2008 update: We only received this camera back so we will not finish the IR-B review but we will continue on this one. We stuck it on the table and performed a series of trigger time tests and all came out at 2 seconds which is a big improvement. We then done some sensing range tests and they all came out very good and will easily sense out past the flash range this time of year. The picture quality seems to have been improved also. We have it on the hill monitoring a nice pile of corn so I am sure some of our resident welfare deer will give us a good show.
11-20-2008 update: This camera has worked well but still has a couple of issues one minor and the other is troubling. The first is that dreaded filter clunk that several of this years IR cameras have had to deal with and the other is we have about 12% of the night time pictures are without flash. Out of a series of 820 pictures we had a total of 103 them without flash. The day pictures are very good and have a good degree of quality. We could not duplicate the picture quality of their site pictures but we found them to be respectable in quality.
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