Chasingame: The Engineer

Summer Heat vs Trail cameras

Seems like every year when this time of the year comes around and all the new stuff is hitting the market I see across multiple forums about this brand new cam that just will not see me at ten feet. Well this year is no exception. Maybe by having a short lesson in PIR function will lessen the aggravation. All of the cameras produced today have the same type of sensor that looks at movement and heat. When the ambient temperatures reach the target animals body temperature or close to it by a couple of degrees things in the sensing department cease to function the way we wish. This morning when I was in the process of doing flash range tests I needed my motion sensing outdoor lighting to come on in order to complete these tests without dragging out some type of flashlight. The night time temperatures were near 80 degrees which only left a small degree of swing between my body temperature (covered with clothes) and the ambient temperature. Well I had to approach each one and wave my hands in front of it to make it function. The camera that I was testing (WV-2 IR) would only seem me at 15 to 20 feet. This is not a fair test for this device due to the fact that its primary use will be in the fall when temperatures are more in line. Moving to the interior of my shop and blowing it out with some high powered air conditioning, I was able to determine that this little cam functioned very well with a 6 to 7 degree drop in temperature. The new cam out of the box and a run to the back yard in the summer afternoon heat to test it on the family dog is probably not a very good judge of just how the cam was designed to work. I will say that when you find a camera that does function well under those conditions, you have a very good one. As we approach the real scouting season the temperatures will wane and camera function will improve. Just remember that every one of these animals that we are trying to capture with these cameras is wearing a fur coat.
Bill