I had a real exercise in frustration with this effort this past season. I have an old digital camera and a motion sensor that is battery operated. I wired them together kinda and got it to work OK when tested but in practice it was kind of a struggle. I made it work but it was a pain in the butt to deal with. Once I actually figured out how to get it all to work it was pretty amusing. Here are some of the photo's it took while set up at a few different places.


A curious Kudu with those big ears could probably hear the bits forming it's picture inside that camera


Some time later this nice impala ram was strolling by


Another photo from the same place with warthogs(2) and an impala

Maribou storks and a vulture on a gut pile[/img]


On that tiny little camera window I could not see anything at first. Then I used the zoom function and saw that through the reflective dust particles there was a buffalo staring right at the camera! Must have been a whole lot of them to stir up the dust before the camera fired.

another at the gut pile several levels of activity here!

I'll have this thing figured out with a better mounting system and a larger memory card for next visit. I think I can get some awsome photos using this setup I bandaided together if I can solve a couple little issues.

Here are a couple more that I just found


Young waterbuck bull

Another couple of warthogs

JJ,
Cool! Are the buffalo and water buck flashes in the dark? Is the sensor infra red? I don't know anything about the motion sensors. Thanks for sharing. This could get even more interesting.

The photo of the kudu and impala are pretty good.

With the larger animals what kind of distance do they have to be to trigger the sensor?

JJ,
is that salt near the gut pile?

That photo of the buffalo is wild! Good job

What are those piles, they are white in color, saw them in the 3 warthogs photo. I like the Francolin in the front of the photo, almost missed him!

Very interesting...keep 'em coming.

Those warthogs seem to be real camera hams. No pun intended.

Hey, those pics turned out good. I am glad to finally see them in a normal size. Here is the site of the camera I was talking about.


http://camtrakker.com/

The camera is a simple little olympus 2.1 mp camera. I modified it to work with a plug and a connection to actuate the switch inside that the button normally closes for the picture taking function. The flash is good for about 30 feet or maybe a bit more. The waterbuck is probably 12-15 yards from the camera in that dark photo.

The sensitivity is adjustable but not really presicion. I think you could make it eliminate birds and rodents but anything big will trip it. It's clearly got a lot of limitations. Maybe I should just buy one ready made that does the same thing? I rigged this system up using a film camera 15 years ago when I was the wildlife manager for a big tree farm here in Wa. state. I was getting photo's of bears for a population study I was tasked with. We also used it for taking photo's of a few problem bears so we could remove the correct ones from the population.

Making it work with a digital was far more complicated because the powerup time eliminates quick snaps as an animal runs by, or even walks by quickly. If left in the ready position the batteries go in a few hours. So there are a few struggles to sort through with it. I would bet that the ready made models have a much bigger battery to power the camera for a week of constant on time. Rather then the little "AA" batteries I use.

I did find my camera has an input for a 6 volt power supply. Maybe I can add another outside source of power to this? The other issue is actually seeing what you have taken. That little LED screen while in the bright sunshine is a bugger to identify what has been taken.

The memory card (8meg)I had was only good for 25 pictues, I did have another one 128 meg but only found it when I got home. That card should hold a hella lot of photos at low res. All these pictures were at low resolution on that 2.1 mp digital camera.

Oh yeah very observant too with the salt piles! That little disgusting location is the "bone yard" it's where the scraps end up. it's filled with skulls and bones. I thought it would be a nice location for some predators or scavanger photos. Let there be know doubt that warthogs are meat eating scavangers. I have had endless folks argue with me for long periods that a warthog is a vegan. Yeah right, watch them on a gut pile some time! I have seen them running through the bush with the meaty leg of a small animal in their mouth more then a few times!

you should be able to get a little solar panel recharging thing that will keep the batteries charged up so the camera can be left on, rather than having to wait for it to start up and miss any action pics like you say.

something like this might just work solarrucksack

Hey Jim,

Where's the one you got of me in the camp? (remember you left it live on the table and it caught me)

Pete

Are you serious? I can post it if you like! I was thinking of posting it but not mentioning any names!

Jim, Pete: Is this something we really want to see?

Canuck

Yeah, why not? Hell, if we can't laugh at ourselves....

Pete

Pete M,

Long time no see! Hope you and yours are well and safe.

Hi Don,

And to you!

Well, if Jim posts this damn photo, your gonna see me now!

Pete