Thoughts from the Engineer
    July 07, 2006

Flash Invasion - Conclusion 

A very well placed IR placed camera succeeded to scare the hell out of a approaching buck. The picture of a mature buck in a mid jump as a result of a normal flash going off. Both of these situations have happened to us as a result of camera flash. The fact is that the red glow of the IR array and the white flash both are a bother to some deer. Because of the average camera has a PIR sensing cone that is low and narrow this almost demands that the camera be placed at eye level to the approaching animal. Just the box (camera) hanging off a tree in his domain is of concern but when it starts to glow (no sensing LED) just the IR array this is enough to scare the hell out of some mature bucks. This is also a fact when a normal flash goes off. During the off season this not near the problem as it would be during the weeks approaching opening day this could be a major problem. Just when we are trying to decide the ultimate spot to hang a stand the tool we chose for this task has eliminated that possibility. We have a group of animals that have been brought up with trail cameras around all their life and they seem to be comfortable with there existence. For those old wise mature fellows a person must take care when placing your cam in his domain. The conclusion is to try to place the camouflaged camera well above the eyelevel of the approaching animal. This task can be somewhat difficult because when the cam is looking down to the target area the footprint of the sensing area becomes somewhat smaller so care must be taken to achieve proper aim. (deer don’t look up) Well they do, but it would be rare for them to spot a cam, plus the glow and flash coming from above is like a natural occurrence so the scare factor is reduced. We have tested some cameras where the flash going off caused a small click that would definitely alert a spooky old buck to the fact that something had happened. This is not the case with the IR cameras but those small noises do not appear to be near the threat when they are above and not down in his zone. I have reviewed thousands of pictures on most of the popular outdoor forums I see picture after picture of great bucks so our field tool called a trail camera does work. It is just the folks putting them in the domain of a wise old fellow must watch their sent control and try to properly place this tool without to much disturbance to achieve the desired result.
 
During testing of IR cams in the movie mode we were able to document the fact that in total darkness the deer approach the target area, stop, stare at the cam, and turn and run away. This also happened while testing the Buckeye system in the "burst" mode which is three pictures instantly one after the other. We would see the animal approach and stop and lock on to the camera and turn and leave town. This happened again during the testing of the Wildlife eye but we concluded that this is a very noisy device and could have been to the noise factor. When the IR camera sensor detects the animal it will fire the IR array which causes three things to happen:

1. produces IR light (invisible to human and animal)
2. heat (detectable by many animals)
3. a pale red glow easily seen by human and containing enough white light that it is also detectable by deer.

Being these devices are totally silent and the flash is happening in darkness there is only one conclusion.

The deer can see the pale red glow of the IR emitters. During normal setups which is-detection-flash-and delay (time during which cam is writing to the card) most folks would not see the animals reaction to the flash.

Bill