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Trail Cams & Pic's
Tactacam Reveal???
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<blockquote data-quote="TheLBLman" data-source="post: 5056492" data-attributes="member: 1409"><p>Certainly a very positive thing to have Tactacam and so many others now competing in the marketplace for our business ---- that's how we ultimately end up getting the most for our money.</p><p></p><p><strong>I do applaud Tactacam's entry into the cellular cam market, and believe that competition has helped lower the prices with other brands, including the costs of the cellular services needed for the cams.</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>I've also experienced the low detection rate, and believe it's been a good bit less than 93% on the two I've been testing. Not just deer, but mine often will not trigger on a person walking by at 10 feet! And that is not the only negative "issue" I have with these cams.</p><p></p><p>Even disagree about their being the best camera for the money, albeit consider them in the range of <u>ok for the money</u>, especially <u>if you just use them as a regular trail cam</u> (don't use the cellular feature). Their image quality is excellent, but that doesn't matter if it fails to get the picture.</p><p></p><p>One of the biggest issues to me (maybe they have or will update this) is that the cellular pics have been viewable only on a smart phone or tablet (not on a regular PC). Yes, you can remove the SD card and load the pics onto a computer, but that defeats much of the purpose of going cellular.</p><p></p><p>Another big issue has been that the cams will only upload 1 pic of a multiple-pic event. If I set a cell cam for 3 pics, either I want it to cellularly send me those 3 pics, or at least give me the choice of it sending 1, 2, or 3 of them. There is no choice with Tactacam, as it's going to send 1 pic per event.</p><p></p><p>Worse, the "dead" time between triggering events is much longer than your settings (with the Tactacams) compared to some other cell cams. If you set your cam for a 30-second delay, that delay may be more like 1 minute or longer, as apparently these cams are taking longer to "write" to the card than some others.</p><p></p><p>Another issue is programming times for cellular uploads. You are <u>daily</u> limited to once, twice, or immediate. But the "immediate" doesn't seem to work "immediately" any more than about half the time, instead waiting until the next trigger event to upload (which can be the next day). <u>You can strike this cam off your list if timeliness of uploads might be important to you</u>, as well as how often you can change the settings. A setting change may take up to 24 hrs to become effective, but sometimes it just doesn't seem to "take", pushing that then to 48 hrs.</p><p></p><p>Depending on the application, time of year, etc., I often change a cell cam's setting twice daily, sometimes more often. Either cannot do that, or cannot do it reliably with these. With all cell cams, you can greatly extend battery life by reducing the number of pics per event, and lengthening the delay between events, at night (nighttime flash is a big battery drainer, as is more frequent cellular uploads, such as with "immediate" instead of "scheduled").</p><p></p><p>Also nice to be able to kinda "toggle" between "immediate" and "scheduled" uploads closer to real time with other brands (cannot do that with Tactacam).</p><p></p><p>Unless used more for security than wildlife, I do not want "immediate" uploads at night while I'm sleeping. But may prefer "immediate" during the day. I need to be able to make these changes more often and with more reliability than Tactacam has allowed.</p><p></p><p>Tactacam claims long battery life, and it is somewhat enhanced by the very fact these cams will only send 1 pic per triggering event. Even in view of that, I'm finding the 12 AA batteries are not lasting as long as other cell cams using 8 AA batteries (and others uploading 2 to 3 times more pics daily before dying!).</p><p></p><p>Finally, the monthly cellular costs of these can be more (per cam) than other brands, but depending on how many you're running, Tactacam's monthly service charges can be more or less vs other brands. Just remember <u>the cell service per cam over the next couple years may exceed the initial cost of the cam itself</u>.</p><p></p><p>Best buy "for the money"?</p><p>Perhaps not if you <u>consider the cost per pic transmitted</u>, the cost of 12 lithium batteries replaced more frequently than other brands using 8 lithiums.</p><p></p><p>Also, what is the cost of missed pics due to the poor detection rate?</p><p></p><p>All that said, I do expect Tactacam to make improvements, likely eliminating some of the issues I find problematic, with their next "version".</p><p></p><p>Tactacam's competitors will also make improvements.</p><p>So we can expect to get more for our money will all brands in the coming months.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TheLBLman, post: 5056492, member: 1409"] Certainly a very positive thing to have Tactacam and so many others now competing in the marketplace for our business ---- that's how we ultimately end up getting the most for our money. [B]I do applaud Tactacam's entry into the cellular cam market, and believe that competition has helped lower the prices with other brands, including the costs of the cellular services needed for the cams.[/B] I've also experienced the low detection rate, and believe it's been a good bit less than 93% on the two I've been testing. Not just deer, but mine often will not trigger on a person walking by at 10 feet! And that is not the only negative "issue" I have with these cams. Even disagree about their being the best camera for the money, albeit consider them in the range of [U]ok for the money[/U], especially [U]if you just use them as a regular trail cam[/U] (don't use the cellular feature). Their image quality is excellent, but that doesn't matter if it fails to get the picture. One of the biggest issues to me (maybe they have or will update this) is that the cellular pics have been viewable only on a smart phone or tablet (not on a regular PC). Yes, you can remove the SD card and load the pics onto a computer, but that defeats much of the purpose of going cellular. Another big issue has been that the cams will only upload 1 pic of a multiple-pic event. If I set a cell cam for 3 pics, either I want it to cellularly send me those 3 pics, or at least give me the choice of it sending 1, 2, or 3 of them. There is no choice with Tactacam, as it's going to send 1 pic per event. Worse, the "dead" time between triggering events is much longer than your settings (with the Tactacams) compared to some other cell cams. If you set your cam for a 30-second delay, that delay may be more like 1 minute or longer, as apparently these cams are taking longer to "write" to the card than some others. Another issue is programming times for cellular uploads. You are [U]daily[/U] limited to once, twice, or immediate. But the "immediate" doesn't seem to work "immediately" any more than about half the time, instead waiting until the next trigger event to upload (which can be the next day). [U]You can strike this cam off your list if timeliness of uploads might be important to you[/U], as well as how often you can change the settings. A setting change may take up to 24 hrs to become effective, but sometimes it just doesn't seem to "take", pushing that then to 48 hrs. Depending on the application, time of year, etc., I often change a cell cam's setting twice daily, sometimes more often. Either cannot do that, or cannot do it reliably with these. With all cell cams, you can greatly extend battery life by reducing the number of pics per event, and lengthening the delay between events, at night (nighttime flash is a big battery drainer, as is more frequent cellular uploads, such as with "immediate" instead of "scheduled"). Also nice to be able to kinda "toggle" between "immediate" and "scheduled" uploads closer to real time with other brands (cannot do that with Tactacam). Unless used more for security than wildlife, I do not want "immediate" uploads at night while I'm sleeping. But may prefer "immediate" during the day. I need to be able to make these changes more often and with more reliability than Tactacam has allowed. Tactacam claims long battery life, and it is somewhat enhanced by the very fact these cams will only send 1 pic per triggering event. Even in view of that, I'm finding the 12 AA batteries are not lasting as long as other cell cams using 8 AA batteries (and others uploading 2 to 3 times more pics daily before dying!). Finally, the monthly cellular costs of these can be more (per cam) than other brands, but depending on how many you're running, Tactacam's monthly service charges can be more or less vs other brands. Just remember [U]the cell service per cam over the next couple years may exceed the initial cost of the cam itself[/U]. Best buy "for the money"? Perhaps not if you [U]consider the cost per pic transmitted[/U], the cost of 12 lithium batteries replaced more frequently than other brands using 8 lithiums. Also, what is the cost of missed pics due to the poor detection rate? All that said, I do expect Tactacam to make improvements, likely eliminating some of the issues I find problematic, with their next "version". Tactacam's competitors will also make improvements. So we can expect to get more for our money will all brands in the coming months. [/QUOTE]
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