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2010Moultrie L20 Camera Review
Out of the box first impression was I had my hands on one of last years
WGI basic cameras IR cameras. This camera is almost
exactly the same size but the cut off corners are cut
different and this camera has strap loops on the back
and theirs had bungee holes at the corners. The size is
about seven by seven and a half inches and it is about
two and a half inches thick. The case is plastic that is
satin black but still has a small degree of reflection.
The back has a couple of contoured bark grabbers to keep
it centered on the tree along with the strap loops. The
front has a very small white flash at the top and the
lens/PIR sensor is the only other things on the front.
This is a cam in the door type of configuration and the
only saving factor is the bark grabbers that help hold
the came somewhat upright when the door is opened and
the camera is tree mounted. The heavy door has a
tendency to pull the cam sideways and down when the door
is opened while servicing the camera. There is no
security other than the small door loop for a small
lock. The hinge and latch setup seem to be very solid
and did not give me any difficulties. The door has a
full gasket and appeared to be weather resistant, though
I did not test that.
The door will only open one quarter of the way which is a little awkward
because of the stops built into the hinges. This looks
like a weak point if the cam was bumped while the door
was open. There is a very small LCD associated with the
up down and select buttons to accommodate programming
while the rotary switch selects the area to be
programmed. The rotary switch also has the arm position
at the very top. The only other switch is the on/off
switch. The bottom area has a four C cell battery holder
with a snap on protective cover.
The price is anywhere from $39 to $59 depending on sales/coupons and
where you decide to shop. This is a very basic camera
with very basic function. It does seem to have a decent
trigger time from some general testing I was doing to
check day/night picture quality and the multi shot
(2@5sec.) function. There is no video or internal memory
on this camera. Minimum delay is one minute.
The PIR sensor lens looks strange to me, because it is the multi zone
type but it is concave instead of being convex. It looks
like it got popped in somehow but it does work and it
will sense so we will see if it works in the wild once
we have it deployed. Our expectations are not very high
so far, but I hope the degree of function will change my
mind. Moultrie needs a lot of help this year. I have
some drop tests and some timing tests to do then I will
get this out to the official table for some serious
analyzing and sample pictures.
09-03-2010 update:
The lab reports so far show that day and night trigger
times to be just over two seconds around the 2.3 to 2.4
range. This is a bit of good news for this camera as
long as we can get the pictures to come out with a
degree of quality that most will accept. This is a low
dollar camera and we know that the expectations are a
bit low but maybe it will surprise us.
09-05-2010 update:
Darn and double du du, the batteries went dead very
early but they were Energizers so that test will most
definitely get re done with some Ray O Vacs. The good
news is the day pictures (went dead prior to going
through the evening) are all pretty good and clear. This
camera sells from 39 to 59 dollars depending on source
or being on sale. The simple setup and size should make
this camera very popular. There is no external battery
port so this cam may be a candidate for the same type of
battery mod we did with those battery eating Bushnell
trail sentry cameras. Before we jump to that
modification let us run the test again with better
batteries to make sure that it was just bad cells to
start with. This is the time I wish I had an inside line
on wholesale Ray O vacs.
09-06-2010 update:
With a new power pill in its tummy we had a pretty good
evening clicking away. We will not say that this
camera's white flash is one of its strong points. The
flash is mounted so that it is aimed low for the camera
so even with the aim catching the animals toward the
bottom of the picture the flash still is hitting low in
front of most of the target animals. When well
illuminated the night pictures did show a good quality.
This puts this little sub $50 camera out front of the
Moultrie
line in picture quality when put up against those units
previously tested that had the 2010 label. We might see
if we have time just what this camera would do if we
again tip it back a little more. This leaves the battery
life as the one remaining test.
09-12-2010 update:
The aim was adjusted a little higher and the results
showed a little more color and distance in the night
shots. This camera had a couple of hick ups this time
around when the flash failed to fire. Could this be
because the battery level has dropped some? We do not
know at this time but we will follow up as we run
through the balance of the battery life test. We have
liked this camera so far and it has shown more promise
than any of the other
Moultrie
cameras tested so far this year. It is just too bad it
started to fall down part way through the review. Being
this camera cannot be hooked to external power, what you
have on board is what you get when it comes to battery
life. We will do a bit more looking prior to closing
this review.
10-09-2010 update:
My guess is I probably like this
little camera the best of what we have seen from
Moultrie
this year. It did pretty well on the battery life where
it ran 35 days and gave us 1385 pictures. When the cells
were getting tired it really showed up in the picture
quality. We had a lot of black pictures where the flash
just could not get any steam up but the picture quality
and limited flash still made a good enough showing we
grew to like this little camera even with the black
pictures now and then. It has earned its retirement so
we are going to close this review.
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Trigger Tests
(without flash 2.25 seconds)
(with flash
2.26 seconds)
Two Pic Burst
Mode
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Flash Range |
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2MP Photos Samples Night/mixed
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