Worldwide Amazon link: http://geni.us/AOdnq *Review from someone who uses game cameras regularly* This camera offers exceptional value at the current price of £69.99 since it is very easy to use, takes great pictures and is fully weatherproof. I have been testing the Powerextra camera for the last 3-4 weeks in various situations (in all weather) and the quality of photos is certainly comparable to my more expensive Bushnell 14mp cameras - see pictures associated with this review. Video quality is fine but not exceptional (certainly not 1080p) and taking the price into account that is OK - if video quality was a true 1080p the memory card would fill up very fast so I'm cool with a reduction in resolution there as a trade off for more recorded footage.
During initial testing I used extremely cheap generic 8 x AA batteries to ascertain what a 'worst case scenario' would be for battery life and I wanted to determine how many photos (8mp) and videos (between 20s and 30s at '1080p') it would record before the batteries died. I set the camera to take 2 x photos then 1 x short video when sensor was triggered and it recorded well over 800 photos and around 400 short video clips - it was still working even when the battery indicator was showing that it was almost out of power. Very economical.
Using Amazon's 5 star rating system I would rate the camera as follows: Price (at £69.99) - 5 Construction Quality - 5 Features - 5 Ease of Use - 5 Battery Life - 5 Picture Quality - 5 Video Quality - 3 Trigger Speed - 5 Glow When Triggered (or lack of glow) - 5 Final Rating - 5/5
It may seem a bit harsh to mark the video quality as a 3/5 but the manufacturer states it is 1080p and playback would suggest that it is nearer 720p at best - still more than acceptable, especially compared to similar cameras in this price range which can have terrible video quality. Even my 14mp Bushnell cameras which cost close to £200 don't seem to record in full 1080p. This camera has all the features which make it an easy one to recommend to anyone interested in buying a really good camera at a price which doesn't break the bank and while it is perfect for people like me who regularly set game cameras all over the countryside it would be equally useful to a total beginner due to the easy interface and strong performance.
Would I choose this over my expensive Bushnell cameras? Yes, since I can buy 3 of these cameras for the price of one 14mp No-Glow Bushnell and that means I can get way more wildlife footage.
Thanks for reading / watching - you will not be disappointed if you buy this camera.
If you've enjoyed this video please check out the playlists on my channel for hundreds more - on a variety of subjects. Feel free to share or link any of my videos on facebook, twitter, forums etc. for the benefit of anyone you think may also enjoy watching. See you next time. Pondguru
Hello there, welcome back.
In this video we're going to be taking a quick look at this fella.
This is a Power Extra 12 megapixel HD game cam.
This is an all-weather camera that would normally just be strapped
to a tree, or in this case, strapped to an old chimney pot.
Trying to get a picture of the kingfisher on my pond.
And you would basically set these up
and leave them overnight for a week, or until the batteries ran out.
Trying to capture wildlife in pictures and also in videos.
I'm going to switch this one off because I've actually had
this one running for the last three, four weeks using cheap batteries.
And I basically have run it until the batteries
are almost dead to see how many pictures and videos I can get.
It took well over a thousand videos and photos
and I had it set to take two photos and then a
20 second video so that's a hell of a lot of footage.
I've used the 32 gig memory card in here
and it's filled it up quite nicely.
Obviously with better quality batteries you're going to get a lot
more life out of that but even with these cheap ones
to get over a thousand pieces of footage
The footage is impressive.
Now I'm not going to insult your intelligence
by doing an unboxing video if you want to see what
comes with this in the box simply look
at the Amazon listing click on the pictures.
What I am going to do is quickly run through
the various features and also how to set it.
Then I think we'll take a look at the footage
that this one's managed to capture
and then I'll actually give my thoughts
on the picture quality, the video quality,
trigger speed etc etc at the end of the video.
Okay the first thing you've got to do really
in order to be successful with a game cam
is to understand the creature that you're trying to
capture on the game cam that requires a little bit
of knowledge of wildlife not huge amounts
but the basics you've got to be able
to recognize where animals are traveling i.e the tracks the
signs sometimes the smells what they leave behind like
the badger toilet that's up here and you can
increase your chances by putting a little bit
of bait down i tend to scatter a few fish pellets
Just around the place.
Even just half a dozen scattered around in front
of the camera about 10 to 15 feet away will give
you good results because animals can sniff them out.
Just behind me here we've got a place where
badgers certainly come through
because there's a well-worn track up there to the place that they
use as their toilet. So by setting the camera
on here looking towards there, chances are we're
going to get a badger. So we'll strap that on there.
If it isn't quite straight just stick
Stick something down behind it, get it more or less leveled up.
Wrap this around the tree to tidy it up and you're good to go.
Make sure the strap's tucked nicely in
because if that starts flapping around in front
of the sensor you'll have thousands of pictures
of a flappy strap.
Now here we've got off, set up and on.
So we go to set up, comes on.
Press menu, and this is really,
really easy to navigate with the arrow keys.
You can set the mode,
which is either only photos or photos and videos or only videos.
You can set the photo size. I've got it set on the full 12 megapixel.
Video size as well, that's basically the video quality.
Amount of pictures, video length.
This one's actually set at 30 seconds.
On the next page, we've got interval, periodic shot,
which is basically a field scan function.
You can set that to fire off every minute
or every two minutes or every five minutes
in case there's something out of detection range
that you still want to get a picture of.
Side PIR which basically these sensors always have those on.
Volume record on as well just
in case there's anything calling just out of range.
Auto power off five minutes that just saves the battery a bit.
Next page is just kind of basic options, backlight timer,
flashlight timer, date and time. I normally
have that switched off
but you will see that from some of the photos that I've got on later
in the video, I actually left that on.
I forgot to knock that off. And time format,
you can have it 12 or 24 hours.
Timestamp on or off, I like that off.
You can name your camera if you want,
you can have it password protected, change the language,
and you can also change the settings if you want
to link it straight up to your TV or laptop.
It's got PAL or NTSC. Format is to format the memory card.
Very important to do that,
just to wipe off any old data
and to ensure that it works properly. Reset to factory,
that'll basically reset all of your personal settings. And system,
I don't actually know what that is, I've never looked at that.
And I don't regard it as important
because it doesn't seem to affect anything I do.
I'll have to look that up, I don't know what that is.
Have a look in the instructions yourself.
So basically you set it to what you want, press the menu to get it off,
knock
it
from
setup
to
on,
clip
it
back
up,
take
pictures
of
birds
on
perches.
I would advise roughly two foot away from the camera.
That is a good distance to get
nice clear pictures.
Anything closer than two feet and it could possibly be blurry.
Okay this has got 42 black LEDs
which basically gives it a no glow feature. That means that when
you walk past it you shouldn't be able
to see any glow coming off here whatsoever and I can
confirm that when I've been walking around on a night
and it's been taking pictures of me
I haven't been able to see any glow from this at all.
The batteries last a hell of a long time,
they're well retained in here, they're not going to fall out.
And the control interface, i.e. how you set the thing
and how you check to see if it's taking any pictures,
is a hell of a lot more intuitive than it is on the Bushnell cameras.
I much prefer the interface on this one.
Quality of construction also is very, very good.
The trigger time is very, very good as well. I think it's 0.2 seconds.
It'll certainly get birds coming in to land on a perch.
Price, 5 out of 5.
Quality of construction, 5 out of 5.
Picture quality, 5 out of 5.
Features, 5 out of 5.
Interface, 5 out of 5.
Video quality, 3 out of 5.
That's the one area where this is let down.
But on the plus side, that allows you
to really fill up your memory cards
with hundreds and hundreds of videos.
If it was the full 1080 HD,
you'd very quickly fill up your memory card.
So there is a trade-off there.
Overall definitely five out of five. Now I would definitely recommend
this to beginners and also seasoned game cam users as well.
As I say I've got Bushnell cameras,
I've got other budget cameras and I am impressed with this genuinely.
It is good. Even if you've only got basic knowledge of wildlife
as long as you've got plenty of different species in your area.
This will deliver good pictures and decent videos of it.
Check out my YouTube channel and my playlist.
It's called Pond Guru vs Nature.
That's all game cam stuff.
Thanks very much for watching.
See you next time.
