I have one of the original Moultrie Gamecams. The new Gamecam II is quite a bit less expensive (under $100) and looks good. Anyone have any experience?

And while we're at it, does anyone have a simple way to convert the Gamecam or Gamecam II to use a digital camera?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

I used one of the gamecam II's and had some problems taking pics at night. Not for sure if it was anything i was doing wrong, i followed all the instructions and it took pics fine during the day. Good luck

Hello Stone Creek,

Lots of complaints on the Game Cam II

http://www.jesseshuntingpage.com/moultrie-game-cam.html

There are also complaints about this unit on our game camera forum at

http://www.jesseshuntingpage.com/forums/index.php?s=03874d15661ad5d731b601e24af2fae6&act=SF&f=50

More info and reviews on other game cameras at http://www.jesseshuntingpage.com/cams.html

I decided to put one into service last week. The first roll of film looks promising. The problem I had was with the camera film door popping open inadvertantly when placing the camera back into the box. I found that you need to do this rather gently to avoid the problem and exposing part of the film.

As with any camera depending on solely its own flash, nighttime range is limited, even with 800-speed film. The image of one deer which walked by fairly close to the camera was very sharp and clear, while those at 25' or more were pretty marginal. I think I'll remount it closer to the subject area.

Would like to hear from others using not only this camera, but also competitors.

After using this GameCam II for almost two months, I'm fairly pleased.

It's biggest drawback is that the longest delay you can set it for is 6 minutes. When used at a feeder, this makes it quite a film-burner, because the same pair of does may hang around a feeder for an hour some nights. I don't really need 10 pictures of the same animal. The original Gamecam had a delay of up to 30 minutes -- a worthwhile feature.

The dual-battery approach, with a big 6-volt lantern battery powering the sensor and two D-cells powering the camera makes for a long-lasting power set-up. I haven't had to change either of the batteries (and the 6-volt lantern battery I used was a regular carbon, not an alkaline-type). The housing has been amply weather-proof to protect the camera and sensor, even in some pretty heavy thunderstorms.

(We jerry-rigged our old Gamecam to use a lantern battery rather than the little rechargeable dude it came with, and this works much better.)

My conclusion is that this model will give you similar performance to most of its competitors and at an economical price. I would still like to see someone (1) come out with a much more powerful flash, and (2) use a digital camera with a removable memory card (which would get you up to a couple of hundred photos per chip, save a bunch of time and money in film processing, and make it convenient to send photos of the "big one" to your buddies on AR).