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2010Scoutguard SG-565F
white flash 5MP Camera Review
This camera has been around for some time and has had a degree of
testing leading up to this release. Built on the same
platform as the 560 camera it shares the same case with
a different door. Our original sample even had the cut
filter on the board and had a really bad filter clunk
even though it was white flash. This was reported as a
severe deficiency and was suppose to be corrected in the
final product prior to release. Most every one now is
familiar with the Scoutguard products that use the wired
remote and this is the same and the programming is the
same, so we will spend no time explaining that.
The popularity of the white flash seems to have gained another build up
in popularity because of the color night pictures. This
trade off where there are no night video capabilities
appears to be alright with a lot of users. The market
has been shy of cameras that actually capture decent
pictures in the white flash category. Spy Point and
Stealth do this well in white flash along with the old
Leaf River cameras. This is an area that was somewhat
weak in our original test camera. We will be taking a
strong look at this along with all the other normal
functions.
Trigger time is supposed to be less than 1.5 seconds and there is
suppose to be very good battery life (80 days). This has
been pretty well proven in all previous Scoutguard
products built on this same platform. The small size and
excellent camouflaged case will be hard to spot on the
tree except for that big white strobe at the top. This
camera can use up to 8 gigs of SD card so there should
be plenty of room for a ton of 5 MP pictures and daytime
videos.
I will get some pictures of this camera and then off to the trigger
testing and field testing areas.
11-13-2010 update:
We set up to grab the first of the day/night /8 plate
pictures and got a big hit right where it hurts. We were
under the understanding that the cut mechanism would be
de activated and we would just have a very first class
little white flash camera. Well, that just did not
happen. Even though the sample flash pictures were first
class and the flash range was way down range there is
still this problem for those who have the opposition to
the clunk during the sensing to flash period. We just
finished a review on a primitive system white flash
camera costing a hundred dollars more and it failed to
produce pictures and flash that was satisfactory. This
camera seems to do pretty good in those departments but
we are afraid that the noise will probably take away
from its popularity. We do not understand why they
failed to correct this issue in the post production
units.
Logged more time on this camera and it does give us some
very respectable pictures but even during the day we get
that constant series of clunks each trigger. This has
just got to be fixed for any kind of field deployment.
Sensing was out past 50 feet for this cool day.
11-23-2010 update:
In the Scoutguard tradition this camera still is pumping
out the pictures which the forum users seemed to feel
are pretty good but are not in that 560 category yet. We
have heard there may be a firmware adjustment in the
works so we will wait and see. That action, along with
the attention to the little noise maker will make a good
camera great.
12-05-2010 update:
This camera has clunked its way through another group of
really good pictures so the battery life seems to still
be holding. We will keep it out until the cells give
out
01-23-2011 update:
This camera is still ticking away in Scoutguard fashion.
Our animal count is low due to hunting pressure but so
far the camera has capture 243 photos since 11-20-2010.
We will continue the battery testing for now.
There are no reports of any updates to correct the
clunking we hear with this camera. Numerous
reports have been sent via HCO to BMC about the clunking
as late as this past week at the Shot Show in Vegas.
We will provide a final update when the batteries fail
but we are closing this review now.
04-02-2011 update: Almost 4 months in one
of our less busy areas but over 600 night pictures this
camera is still going on its batteries. It is giving us
some pretty good pictures also.
07-15-2011 update: The batteries finally
died on this camera which has continued to run in its
isolated area since 12/05/2010. The batteries
finally went dead on 07/14/2011. The camera took
1800 photos over this duration which is VERY good with a
white flash camera.
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Trigger Tests
(without flash 1.56 seconds)
(with flash
1.89 seconds)
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Day Range/8
Plate
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Flash Range |
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