Moultrie I-35 Camera Review

2010 Moultrie I-35 4 MP red flash 28 count digital camera review

A new style box this year wearing a fall color with a little green showing. This is a nice camouflage color and should hide very well provided you don’t choose to use a security enclosure. A 28 count array if tuned right should provide good lighting down range for those night pictures. Security is not there so an after market system must be used if you are in an area that requires extra caution. This is a very good match for most applications with the exception of the minimum delay which is not acceptable at one minute. To get around this you must select a multi shot (burst) which repeats triggers at a 4 second rate. The instructions tell us that you can also adapt this camera to their game management system (wireless) cellular for a monthly fee. Like most companies they have upped SD card size to 16 gig which is a big over kill for a 4 MP camera but some folks like that feature. We are very happy that they at least offered some cameras this year that are not in that ill designed lunchbox configuration that caused us all the moisture and trash problems last year. We will not be testing any of those this year because of the strong feed back and agreement to our last year’s findings.

You can select up to 4 different picture resolutions and two video resolutions. A full information strip on each picture is another standard feature. Those that use the extra large cards and have the need for extended stays in the field the 4 D cells should do pretty good but the external battery port and optional panel might also be the way to go. Make sure that if you choose one of the great security boxes to put this camera in that you make sure that the hole is in the box so you can access the external battery port. All the right features are there along with the rapid response time which we assume means trigger time. Should this camera come in with a 3+ trigger time I will say up front this will be a very short review. Moultrie has shown all of us they can do great things with pictures and battery life, it is time to also show us that they learned how to decrease the trigger times so they become competitive with the market. Not being situated in the lunch box this year and hopefully having a sub 2 second trigger time we believe the price and function will make this camera a super seller like the first year I-40. The size is a whopping 6X9X31/4 inches which takes it out of the mini category.

Out of the box first impressions were very good at a glance until I actually picked the camera up. I almost pitched it over my shoulder because it was so light. I carefully opened the two plastic latches and peaked inside thinking I may have bought an empty box. Everything was there but it has that flimsy feel like everything is about half the gauge in thickness as all previous Moultrie cameras we have tested. I picked up my old D-40 from last year and it has a lot more heft than this camera. The inside of this camera is totally plain Jane with no frills. Of course we are dealing with a $ 150 camera but again looking at that old $79 D-40 and it has a look and sheen with a more of a quality appearance to me than this camera. Gone is the nice gasket in the groove to seal the door and now there is just a mass of flat rubber about a ¼ inch wide all the way around and the door must compress into it. It looks functional but clearly low rent compared to previous Moultrie cameras. With the door open there is a 28 count array at the top and a round PIR sensor lens just below that. Next there is the camera lens and LCD for programming with its associated UP/DOWN/OK buttons. There is also a LED aim which is not very functional because it dies at a very short distance. TV out/USB ports are next to the SD card slot (up to 16 gig) and there are tubular battery slots left and right of the LCD which hold three C cells + side down toward the bottom of the cam. These battery holders have a couple of shaped little plastic covers which snap in place and appear to be real easy to loose if you are not careful. The outside on the bottom is the port for their system (cell) and the external battery port.

A quick trip to the TT table and performed an hour plus of un official tests and the trigger times look to be just over two seconds. The IR array produces two short blips which appears to be a light metering step to reduce washout on close subjects. The short duration will also help avoiding that dreaded spook factor. Below is a list of the specifications and the fact that we have a Moultrie that has a sub 2 second trigger time I would say we have a good long review to do. Let’s hope that one of those wild field mice don’t take offence to this thing being in his domain and trashes the case. I did a couple daylight tests to see if the “high” quality setting was what we were going to get, well I will not say that I would by any means call the results as being high quality pictures, but I would say that for a $150 camera it does a pretty good job and to me the pictures look better than last years $450 wannabe black flash camera from another company. This camera may just be the distant cousin of the great 07 I-40 we loved so much. Too bad that it got dressed up in a new coat that does not have that solid look and feel.

Manufacturer's Specs:

06-05-2010 update: We have been busy with a new load of cameras that arrived so after we get a few more sample pictures and videos we will move this cam to the side to just run out until dead so we can get a battery life measurement. This has not been a very impressive camera being that we are presently testing other cameras that cost less with better features (delay /trigger/picture quality) and so far have given better results.

Flash Range Test (camera only)
(click for full size original)

Day Range 8 Plate Test

Trigger Tests with and without flash
both are approx. 2.25 seconds

Photo Samples

Video Samples (high res)