Black Flash (No-Glow) Game Trial Cameras

Thread Starter

monster_catfish

Joined Mar 17, 2011
116
Out on my motorbike on the trials through the woods here, on the trail of a couple of my hounds that took off, I damn near ran over a headless corpse. Talked to some of the locals, and it turns out ritual murder is on the rise, BUT, the cops are too scared to go into the woods.

The other "law enforcement" group here comprises civilian volunteers with pump shotguns, and they generally dispense "justice" without recourse to trials of any sort, so I spoke to their head honcho, who also expressed understandable reluctance to go lay in ambush in the woods.

Then it occurred to me that a number of night vision trail cameras with NO visible flash, positioned overlooking known "dumping grounds" could be the ticket to identify the perpetrators, so that the vigilantes could round up the guilty and dispatch them to the Happy Hunting Ground.

Looking for No-Glow, or "Black Flash" night vision cameras was a bewildering experience, on account of the vast number of makes and models out there. The Chasing Game website seems to have the most comprehensive listing of reviews about the various trail cameras, and that is where my top choice, the Little Acorn 12MP Trail Camera fell from favor, on account of water leakage issues which may or may not have been resolved by the manufacturer.

I am looking to spend no more than $250 USD per camera, and would have preferred to stay with established name brands like Bushnell, so, after long hours of reading looong reviews, I figured there would be no harm asking here if any of you may have hunting experience with No-Glow (Black Flash) trail cameras, where you might have a favorite and reliable model worth mentioning.

I would prefer a woodland camouflage housing, but will make do with camo tape if the preferred model is only shipped in black, and of course I can ONLY use trail cameras that produce NO visible light when they flash for night pictures. Any words of advice would be very much appreciated.
 

maxpower097

Joined Feb 20, 2009
816
You want infrared gamecams. That gives it nightvision. If you need a bunch on a budget we have tons of them being sold on craigslist and ebay from hunters that upgrade their cams. I see em for $20-$100 usually. If we could start a non profit to raise money for buying them I'd be happy to do things on this end. I would just need proof, images, and a complete story of whats going on and possibly a petition. Then I could start a non profit and take donations to buy you guys game cams and ship them too you. Thats horrible that happens in the world today and will help in anyway possible.
 

maxpower097

Joined Feb 20, 2009
816
You could also buy in bulk from alibaba. You can usually tell the ones that bushnell and the others have bought and rebranded by looking at specs and the acutual item.
 

Thread Starter

monster_catfish

Joined Mar 17, 2011
116
Thanks for the quick reply, Maxpower. I've never looked into AliBaba online because I always assumed that website to be a one-size-fits-all supplier of generic merchandise produced with uncertain quality control. Having said this, I would buy from that site in a heartbeat IF I could be sure that the specifications needed for this camera are met, and that there won't be reliability problems later.

I've already passed the hat around here to raise enough to buy maybe ten trail cameras, but to keep the cat in the bag in this relatively small rural community, the exact nature of the "security items" to be purchased is only known to the vigilante group leader, and myself, since I happened to come up with the idea.

Day AND night vision is a must, obviously for the camera we ultimately select, and the other specifications would be that the camera must use ONLY "Black Flash" or "No-Glow" infra-red LED's for its flash or floodlight function. The faint cigarette-end glow of "red flash" trail cameras would be a dead give-away, and certainly all cameras using an old-school incandescent flash of visible light are entirely out of the question. This narrows down my brand-name search to just those cameras whose night-time flash emits no visible light to give away the position of the electronic sentinel, that is "Black Flash" or "No-Glow" trail cams exclusively.

The Little Acorn LTL 5210 fits the specifications I am after to the letter, EXCEPT for a water leakage problem mentioned in the review whose link is here. For better concealment to prevent camera theft, it would be preferable if my final choice of camera bears woodland camouflage colors, as opposed to the flat black color that seems more prevalent in the market.

Finally I cannot understand why virtually all the trail cameras are huge and ungainly in physical size, with a 3-inch by 5-inch trail camera being about the “smallest” I have seen for sale anywhere. When I started my internet search, I was certain I would find a weatherproof, night/day trail camera that fits the bill, but which would be no bigger than a pack of cards. If you run into any REALLY small, waterproof camo-colored trail cameras with that all-important No-Glow, Black-Flash capability, Max, I would be very grateful if you could post a link to the website where they are sold.

Apologies for the long, rambling post, but I get that way whenever something jolts me out of my usual state of complacency, which is the case right now.

http://chasingame.com/index.php?id=157
 

maxpower097

Joined Feb 20, 2009
816
They have good people and bad people on alibaba. Figuring most stuff is made in china anyways these mnf.'s make it then a US company sees it, likes it and buys 10,000 units branded with their name on it. If you dig into it and do some research you can actually see some products major companies have bought and rebadged as their own. But Alibaba is just a website to hook up mnf's in other parts of the world with buyers in the west. I know lots of people who have made fortuned off of it. Buying tools, rc heli's, etc.. and selling them at the flea market. But to really start to buy and sell on alibaba you need around $1500+. Depending on what your selling.
 

maxpower097

Joined Feb 20, 2009
816
They key is your gonna need an iR light source for night pics otherwise your just gonna get black screens. With the iR lights it will light everything up, but unless they are wearing nightvision or iR visual equipment they won't see it. I've been thinking about making a wireless system for this working on a mesh network you could monitor from your computer at home. That way hunters could put them at all their tree stands, entry ways onto property. And get a good idea of whats going on, on their hunting land without leaving the house. Like a hunting/fishing control room. Marine underwater camera's would be next.
 

Thread Starter

monster_catfish

Joined Mar 17, 2011
116
As I mentioned earlier, Max, the day/night trail cameras I am looking at do depend on infra-red sources to light up the scene for video or still picture recording, but it is the wavelength of that IR light that distinguishes those cameras that give off IR light that is faintly visible to the human eye as a faint red glow, from those that give off IR light that is completely INVISIBLE to the human eye.

The Little Acorn trail camera, for example, states the wavelength of its IR signal to be 940nm, which is evidently invisble to the human eye even on a dark night.

Regarding the Ali Baba website, my lack of expertise in studying performance specs to distinguish a reliable product from a cheap knock-off is the main reason why I may wind up buying from a supplier with a well known name-brand, because I would like to think that such outfits are selective about the manufacturing quality of consumer elecronics they acquire for re-badging and re-sale, if that is in fact what some of those marketers actually do.
 

maxpower097

Joined Feb 20, 2009
816
Catfish I need some of the exact systems. May be we can team up and buy some in bulk or make em ourselves. Ideally I'd like to go wireless so I don't need to goto each system and d/l images. I'd like to Monitor them from my computer and transmit the images. Preferably running on solar power. If you wanna team up testing some we buy on CL or making a prototype lets do iiiiiit! I have all the dev kits to design it and we can pitch in to a low run of boards. They system I'd like to make would be a rectangle like box thats black. Then you can take a picture of a local tree or shrubery and have a car wrap printer make wraps for them depending on region. That why we could have them that look like palm trees, oaks, etc...
 

Thread Starter

monster_catfish

Joined Mar 17, 2011
116
Well Max I decided to play it safe and go with brand name trail cameras known to be reliable by the gurus at the Chasing Game website. I wound up selecting the Bushnell Trophy Cam Model 119466, sold by Gander Mountain, and the Uway VH 200B trail cam sold by HCO.

The picture flashes from both of these models emit little or no light that is visible to the human eye, and the sample photographs I have seen from both models would suffice to make positive facial identification of subjects caught on film or video, even on a pitch-black night.

Also the Bushnel and Uway cameras I selected are shipped with Real-Tree jungle camouflage color schemes, which is vital to blending them in with the surroundings.

I must confess that I simply do not have the technical skill to design and build a trial camera, and do not have the luxury of time to embark on such a project even if I knew of a tech-savvy person to build one for me. A wireless unit that sends images to a cellphone would be nice, but I didn't choose one of those since I couldn't be sure that the cell-phone networks here would be compatible with such cameras designed for the North American market.

In addition to placing these cameras on trails leading to the dump sites to take shots of bad guys, I will set a couple of cameras aside to film critters that swim down the river in the rain forest down the hill from here.

The uber-secretive Sitatunga Swamp Antelope, which tips at over 200 pounds when fully grown, is native to this area, and I once saw one paddling upstream. It'll be fun to catch that big feller on film. The river forest is also home to very rare otters, large troops of Mona monkeys and six-foot long Nile Monitor Lizards, all of who may also make cameo appearances in my home movies before long.

If I get any really spectacular footage, I'll post it here, as well as at the Chasing Game website, which you should definitely visit, given your obvious interest in the rapidly advancing technology of "black flash" trail cams.
 

maxpower097

Joined Feb 20, 2009
816
Lets continue this from the other side. How can you detect iR cams like this? Does nightvision pick up the infrared? Is there anything you can use to detect the iR LED's?
 

Thread Starter

monster_catfish

Joined Mar 17, 2011
116
That is a very important consideration, Max. Even though nobody has heard of night vision gear out here, some of the IR "low-glow" cams do in fact give off a very faint red glow which could be noticed by an alert observer up close, at less than say 5 feet from the camera. There is an extensive discussion of this flaw at the Chasing Game website, in which some of the cameras most likely to be spotted were mentioned.

I selected the Bushnell 466 because it is one of the few "Black Flash" models that does not emit any glow at all. The Uway VH 200B could be spotted if the observer happened focus in up close, but that tiny glow is far more likely to be missed. I still chose that model, though, because, unlike the Bushnell 466, the Uway has password protection that would render the camera un-usable in the wrong hands .

Stantor your caution is very appropriate for this situation, and I may well hand off the installation to the vigilante men, several of who STILL night-hunt for deer and antelope in that area.

The more I hear about the goings on over there, the more chicken I get, regardless of how proficient I consider myself with my trusty old Winchester model 1200.
 

BSomer

Joined Dec 28, 2011
434
Yes, night vision goggles will pick up the IR emitters on the camera. It will look like a nice bright light source. At least the ones I used in the military did. Night vision goggles also have a IR emitter on them to help "light" up the immediate area in front of you if there isn't enough ambient light.
 

maxpower097

Joined Feb 20, 2009
816
That is a very important consideration, Max. Even though nobody has heard of night vision gear out here, some of the IR "low-glow" cams do in fact give off a very faint red glow which could be noticed by an alert observer up close, at less than say 5 feet from the camera. There is an extensive discussion of this flaw at the Chasing Game website, in which some of the cameras most likely to be spotted were mentioned.

I selected the Bushnell 466 because it is one of the few "Black Flash" models that does not emit any glow at all. The Uway VH 200B could be spotted if the observer happened focus in up close, but that tiny glow is far more likely to be missed. I still chose that model, though, because, unlike the Bushnell 466, the Uway has password protection that would render the camera un-usable in the wrong hands .

Stantor your caution is very appropriate for this situation, and I may well hand off the installation to the vigilante men, several of who STILL night-hunt for deer and antelope in that area.

The more I hear about the goings on over there, the more chicken I get, regardless of how proficient I consider myself with my trusty old Winchester model 1200.
As daddy said "Go AK or go home! :)"
 
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