2010Recon Viper 2.1 MP
red flash IR Camera Review
It seems that I have
the need to give a bit of history when I start a review.
Our history dealing with this company has been a
pleasure. I am not going to say that we have never had a
camera problem and had to have it fixed. What I will say
is that the frequency of any kind of problems has been
very few. This company makes a true made in
America
product that has a lot of heavy duty components that
will stand up and work year after year. We still have
original cameras that work every day and they are going
on 6 years old. None of the products that they have put
on the market in the past would break any speed records
when it comes to trigger time, yet the times were always
fast enough that most owners would never complain but
slow compared to some other cameras that were produced
around the same time. A look at the circuit boards will
tell you that they are basically industrial strength.
They are thick and appear to be built to Mil specs.
Now we are in the
year of 2010 and things are about to change. The
migration of very small cameras has begun to move into
the light. This is now the fourth year of the mini cam
and we will probably see lots more hitting the market.
Recon did not rush in to grab a piece of the fame, but
chose to dit back and do the research to bring out their
version of the hand full of lightning with the Viper.
This probably could have been the first one out for 09
but they held back and kept on with their testing in
order to perfect their product.
Coming in at about
seven inches tall and five inches wide it will only
stick out off the tree about one and a half inches. The
face is covered with mossy oak camouflage so with its
small size and color should hide very well on the tree.
Back a few months when the entire trade show buzz was
hitting the net telling about this camera and a few
pictures, we came up with a nick name because of the way
it looked. We called it the back pack cam. This was
because of way the back of the camera that fits the tree
looks like the frame of a professional back pack but in
miniature.
All of the controls
are on the outside of the camera, and accessible at a
glance. The card and battery compartment (4 AA) are on
the inside. This is a two piece camera. A back housing
and mounting bracket is built like an oval with an open
receptacle for the camera unit to slip into. This is
held in place by a couple of spring clamps and is water
tight. The back portion can be mounted and aimed and
when ever the camera unit is removed it will slip back
in place and still maintain the aim. Look and feel and
finish of this camera is first class. It is very solid
and built to last.
Because of this
cameras appearance and size it created a pretty good
amount of vibrations through out the industry. This is
the age of getting there first with the most, and Recon
got there and was among the first but didnt qualify as
being with the most. What they did have was the most
unique along with some state of the art specifications
that we will check but in the past found that their
cameras exceeded their advertised hype. There is a bit
of confusion as far as some items on this camera like CF
vs SD card use and I had to call to get the reason for
this and it turned out to be just a typo and the correct
card is the SD card (format fat 32). Good glass
and high quality sensors should produce very good
pictures.
Two different
versions are available and they are the 4 (Green) and
the 6 (Camo) both with a 2.1MP fixed
resolution. Very fast trigger (1/2 second) and very
small delay periods are the way this camera is designed.
Multi burst picture sequences can be programmed like one
second delay and a 15 picture burst. That setup (15
burst) is not recommended for feeder operations and one
GIG cards. So far they have used up to a 32 GIG card
with no issues. Date/time to the second plus lunar data
is located on each file. Trigger times for day color
pictures is in the half second time frame and a little
less with flash. We will test this and not take their
word for it but they have not told us a story yet that
didnt prove to be fact. There is going to be a lot of
folks sitting on the edge of their chair in front of
their computer trying to figure out just how many of
these cameras that they can order without getting caught
by the little lady. The $199.95 price tag for the green
version (4) and $229.95 for the camo version (6) cam is very much in
line with where the bulk of the cameras are being priced
this year. Function will weed out the choices and I feel
that this is going to be one of the top choices this
year. Having to wait to get into production a full two
years has allowed one of the longest production test
periods we know of. That most definitely should be
enough time to iron out the bugs.
Here are a few of the
specifications:
-
Less than second
trigger time
-
20K pictures per set of
batteries (lithium)
-
Recessed (filtered) array
-
No video
-
1 to 15 count burst
-
2.1 mp
(fixed)
-
Small modular mounting
system
-
Variable strength aiming
laser (slow build up for eye saftey)
-
No picture info strip
(all data shown on picture file)
-
SD card (up to 32 gig)
Scandisk or Delkin recommended
-
Security/Hunting setting
which allows for write over in Security mode
|
This is a very fast
and very small picture only camera. The delay can be set
to a minimum of three seconds. The picture count per
trigger can be set from one to fifteen pictures.
Programming is very straight forward with a select
(mode) and advance/up/down buttons. There are a couple
of programming features that are hidden in the
instructions which is a great feature and forces the
user to read the instructions and not try to be
smarter than the manufacturer. There seems to be that
select group of individuals who just have an opposition
to reading the instructions and get upset when things do
not go well. Those problems can be easily answered by
reading the instructions. This company has gone the
route of putting their instructions on a disk and this
requires that it be printed out for field operations.
There is a quick start card also for basic data inside
the shipping package.
This company does
offer an optional metal security bracket (available in
Jan 2011) for for use with the python cable. So far we
have seen no aftermarket boxes offered by the usual
vendors of that type of product. Their website has not
been updated with the latest accessories but that should
happen soon. From all the original specifications we
have seen that this camera has had to be changed to a
new set of specifications and that is due to the
replacement hardware that prevented its release last
year. My original unofficial tests have shown me that
this camera will probably have a following as the
popularity grows.
The last couple of
years there has been another camera company (Predator)
that has attempted to use the touch screen type of
switch setup. They have experienced difficulties with
their setup and it became almost not usable under sub
freezing conditions. I put this camera through that test
in sub freezing conditions over night and it still
performed well this morning, so we feel that same
problem should not be an issue with this camera. The
switch setup is somewhat stiff even during very warm
conditions and I could tell no difference when it was
frozen. Leak and drop tests passed with no issues.
Another thing that I noticed with this camera is that it
did not have that horrendous plastic smell fresh out of
the box. Programming is
date/time/delay/burst/hunting-security/picture count/aim
settings All performed with four switches which are
mode/set, advance, up, and down which are all in one
line under the LCD. Battery
condition and picture count is also displayed. There is
a very unique double flash behind two filters that each
contains one large recessed IR emitter. The company says
that it is recommended to do your setup within twenty
feet for most situations and still have good flash
coverage. My quick setup prior to the freezer test
showed out to 25 feet with no problem.
11-06-2010 Update:
After trying a sack full of different cards all
formatted to fat 32 we then settled back down to a
Sandisk card which kicked in and started functioning.
Trigger times are very fast around the 1/3rd second time
frame and sensing for this cool morning was about 50
feet. Day range pictures under canopy were very weak in
color somewhat fuzzy but readable. Night range showed
the flash out to 20+ feet. Bright sun pictures were
mostly monochrome/amber in color.
11-07-2010 update:
Sad news, The night pictures just did not come out very
well at all. The flash range is good just past 20 feet.
The picture quality is very lacking and we seem to maybe
have either the wrong camera or the camera we have is
not working correctly. The packaging indicated that this
is a 6 MP camera yet the file size indicates that the
pictures are in the 2 MP range. We tried to use the
XtendIR I and B with this camera and the I (red flash)
model did not help and the Black flash could not be seen
at all by this camera. This leaves us to only use the
camera as is and even with the limited day function we
are not happy with the results so far.
I have some
correspondence pending with the factory people and hope
to have a few answers very soon. The long conversations
about this product leading up to its final release led
us to believe that we were going to see a very amazing
camera that will stand on its own against the
competition. This leads us to believe that maybe our
test camera is defective in some way. This will be
discussed and reported on as soon as we hear something.
Until we hear back we are putting this review on
hold.
11-09-2010 update:
I had another very long informative conversation with
the tech folks at Recon and they were able to clarify
several things. First off I need the mention that the
Viper 4.0 and Viper 6.0 that appears on the packaging
refer to the part number and not the mega pixel rating.
Someone in their system got into a bit of trouble
because of that and the confusion that it caused. The
true MP rating for this camera is 2.1 MP fixed. The
next area is the IR cut on this camera is done
electronically to a point and it has no movable filter.
This means that foliage will not have that vibrant green
but a green corn feeder will show up green because of
its reflective properties. Day/night metering is done
through a sample frame rather than a sensor. The night
flash range is going to be limited to the advertized
range of about 20 feet. Now, lets talk about the
picture quality. It seems that they chose to use a
product like liquid nails to stabilize the focus once it
was mechanically set. The final assembly was done after
this had set up. As of yesterday they discovered that
once this product dried, it shrunk somewhat and in that
process it took the focus adjustment with it. The first
lot of cameras all will have this issue and they are
aware of this and they want our camera back for a rework
of the focus setting. Things will be on hold again for a
while this gets ironed out. We still may get some better
feelings about this camera once it gets re worked.
11-17-2010 update:
A very quick trip off to the eye doctor at the factory
and we received our camera back with a new prescription.
They went in and re adjusted the focus and the results
were about a 50% improvement in picture quality. Please
view the before and after adjustment samples below to
see the degree of improvement because of this minor
adjustment. This is still somewhat lacking, but very
acceptable for most scouting up close observations.
There is no noise with this camera and the light factor
is very controlled.
Before Lens/Focus
Adjustment:

After Lens/Focus
Adjustment:

11-23-2010 update:
We have fielded this camera three times with no results
for the first two outings. This camera seems to be very
sensitive to its sd cards. Make sure that the card icon
is there prior to deployment and I would probably do a
little in house testing to get familiar with its traits.
We did gather a bunch more pictures mostly at night but
we did get several during the day in various lighting
conditions.
06-21-2011 update:
We had this camera deployed and the front indicator
indicated it was functional. Today we shut it down and
pulled the card and the card was empty. We have no idea
as to the problem but after this amount of time waiting
on battery life and finding this we are now forced to
close this review.
Trigger Tests
(without flash .32 seconds)

(with flash
.31 seconds)
 |
Day Range/8
Plate
 |
Flash Range |
 |
|
|
|
|