Beginner Trail camera settings

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gogleddwr

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Howard
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I hope I'm in the correct forum, if not I'm sure somebody will move it to the right one for me.

My eldest son and his wife gave us a Vanbar D600 trailcam as a Xmas present, lucky us. I have never used one before therefore i am a total beginner at this game. I am now looking for advice and recommendations for the camera settings. I have had a look at the menus in the camera and I think I can cope with those. I would also appreciate any advice as how high off the ground I should position it.
I have googled all this but there does not seem a lot of help about, perhaps somebody could point me in the right direction for that as well.

All help would be gratefully received.

Thanks in advance.

Howard
 
I have no experience of the Vanbar but both my Browning and Bushnells have worked well at around 3 feet off the ground, this was for Foxes & Badgers but also effective for a Hedgehog, a Rat and some Mice (as well as neighbour's cats!).
 
It doesn't matter too much, or rather, it depends what view you like.

As Gramps has said about 3 feet off the ground is good. I have also used one at 5 feet plus and also a few inches off the ground.

Higher gives you a bigger field of view, which is good but close to the ground gives more of an animal's eye view of things; though in case of foxes you sometimes get a close up of their knees:)

Along with the view you prefer it depends on the location, just experiment and see what works for you.

Dave

PS Be prepared for the addiction that is viewing the videos every morning.
 
Sorry for the delay in replying.

Thanks very much for the replies, much appreciated. A few other very basic questions please
1. Do you leave the camera on for 24/7?
2. What length of video do you set it for?
3. And the frequency of video and photos.


And, very importantly, how do you attract wild life into your garden?
For several weeks now we've had very little come into the garden - not even field mice (should that be wood mice?)

The camera as I have set it up is producing high quality video - mostly of our empty patio at the moment.

As always any help and advice greatly appreciated.

Howard
 
I leave out camera out over night. Anytime from 4pm to 8/9pm to around 7 the next morning.

I don't think I can change the video length on my camera. All the videos are 1 minute.

I think my camera can be set to take a photo at a set interval but I haven't used it. I leave the camera to record a video every time the sensor detects something.
Earlier in the year I might get 20+ videos in a night, mainly due to a hedgehog and the local foxes. Now there are far fewer visits. The hedgehog has gone into hibernation and the fox visits have really dropped off. I have had a few nights with no videos or ones with only next door's cat.

I've used dry dog food but this was because it was eaten by the hedgehog but peanuts are good too. Foxes eat them and they are too small for the foxes to pick up and carry away. I don't think they encourage rats(at least I haven't seen any) and any still left in the morning are eaten by the birds.

Dave
 
@Tringa thanks for that info. I'll keep experimenting and hoping a couple of evenings ago I got some video of a field mouse darting in and out the shrubbery onto the patio - got quite excited!

I'll keep trying.

Howard
 
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