There is this time of the year that hunting is so right and the best way to unwind and even do as a hobby. Of course, the primary tool when you are hunting is the camera that will capture all the activities of the animals in the woods, and that will make you updated as ever.
It is the top goal of all the hunter in the world to have the most amazing shots and videos in the wild and if possible to not get some empty frames that are so annoying ever. Be always alert with all the mistakes that you may encounter while using your game and trail camera that is more than 50 percent the cause why you have some annoying shots in the woods.
Wrong placement of the camera
Some may place the camera too high and too low that makes the shots got wasted. In some instances setting the camera too low and too high may work, mainly when you are using it as a surveillance camera. It is essential to know what type of shots you wanted to have so that you know how to place and angle the camera.
Setting the camera 36 inches below the ground is the safest way to get the best frames and videos that you wanted. The placement of east and west also is a terrible idea, for you don’t want to have a shot that is washed out during sunrise and sunset. It will just end up that your frames will be just wasted so prefer setting it up in the north and west.
Having unofficial external power supply
Some of you may think that using external power supply will help you in extending the battery life and in using the camera, but the reality is that it can damage your circuit board.
Even though the produced supply power of your external is the same as the official one, but how that supply power goes into your camera is not the same. You always have to prefer for the official one to avoid early damage to your device.
Preferring other batteries over the official
You would prefer some rechargeable ones to save some money and those easy to find. In reality, using rechargeable batteries are more expensive than buying the exact batteries of the cam. Those rechargeable bats have a lower voltage than the right alkaline or lithium batteries.
With this smaller energy, it will affect the performance of the camera since it can’t support the power that it needed in the first place. During the performance it will automatically shut down because of its low power and that will cause you not to have some fantastic shot that you wanted, so just choose the original batteries for the camera.
Having activities outside the trail camera
After saving some shots that were taken in the trail camera, now you wanted to delete those frames inside the SD card with a digital camera to be more comfortable. Removing images with the digital camera will be a lot more difficult because it will alter those file structures to the SD card. So if you wanted to delete pictures, you better remove or reformat it inside the game camera to have well-wanted results.
Buying digital SD cards
You may want to reuse your cards that are for the digital cameras to save money. Digital SD cards are high-speed cards that are only for digital cameras or DSLR and not suitable for your game trail cameras.
You may encounter some problems if you push on using those high-speed SD cards because those cards have a minimum sustained writing performance for pictures and videos. There are no high-speed cards that are used for how many months. You better buy the right SD card for your trail camera to avoid problems.
Eager to check some shots
You may be so excited to check if you already have some fantastic shots even if you just put it. It takes a lot of time after the animals will be back to their routines because your noise and scent of going there will affect their daily activities. Your tail camera is not there to take amazing shots instantly even if there are no animals in the woods.
It will always depend on the wood’s environment to have some great shots. The tendencies of still checking your camera are that during the time you are blocking some shots, maybe there were some fantastic shots of that period and you were not able to have that chance. So you have to wait for how many days in checking your game camera to document all the happenings and amazing shots in the wild.
Don’t have enough knowledge in the woods
If you want to capture the best routines of the animals, you have to know or familiarize the woods. If you don’t have enough knowledge in the woods, you may place your trail camera in the wrong place, and you are just wasting your time filming or documenting and even buying the trail camera.
Having some leisurely walk in the woods would help you a lot in familiarizing where the best part to capture the animals’ routine. Know first everything before you set up in the wrong place.
Too confident to let your camera publicly alone
Leaving your camera alone in the woods is a big no for its security purposes. All things are a target for all the thieves in the area, so don’t forget to have some security device that will guard your camera especially that you are setting it in the public domain. You may put some camera locks and another cable lock that will firmly hold your trail camera to the trees.
The most effective way of making your camera more secure is that placing it far away to the place where there are just a few people that will likely see it. Avoid putting your camera near the roads or where there are a lot of people passing.
It is also beneficial for you if you place your camera far away because there are more animals’ activities that you can get. So, you are now double hitting birds with a stone, making your camera more secure and having more actions of animals.
Leaving too strong scent
In a trail camera set up, animals can detect your scent directly. It can affect their daily activities in that area, and that will lead to not have some shots that you expected during the early days after of your set up.
Be in minds that in going to the woods don’t use some strong scent that feels like will last until forever in the smell of animals. It will help if you use some scent-eliminating spray in the camera to help eliminate your scent in there and avoid seeing frames that animals are just staring at your camera.
Forgetting to turn the camera on
You were maybe super excited to have and get amazing shots again and forgetting to activate the camera. Having a passionate feeling after getting some great shots and putting back an empty SD card is just average, but first things first are that never forget to turn on the camera and lock it up again.
Tendencies like that happened a lot in using game cameras, and that is the most significant mistake that you may do in the future if you have not yet experienced it.
After failing to recall turning on the camera, you are now expecting that the camera is currently taking a fantastic shot in the woods and surprisingly it didn’t, and that was a super waste of time and actions in the woods. Be always reminded to always power on the camera and lock it up again to avoid regrets.
Encountering programming problems
It is not inevitable changing the battery and memory card of your camera and after changing you may face some programming problems. Some of the trail cameras lost the date, time and other settings after replacing the card and battery so always be careful in programming settings.
You better do double checking before you leave in all those things that are likely possible to continuously change after another battery and memory card has been inserted. That date, time moon phase, and other data will also give you information if the camera has a good shot on that day or not.
Mixing SD cards and batteries
You may have designated boxes for the memory cards to be restored as well as the batteries. Having separate storage for the empty or full SD cards and low and unused batteries will help you a lot to not feel the hassle.
You may mistakenly get the used ones then found it out when you are already in the area and you don’t have a choice but to go back to the house and that is the hassle part there. Always separate the blank cards and batteries from the used ones to feel more convenient in picking what to insert next round.
Not smart enough in buying decisions
As a shopper, you may prefer those products that your money can just afford. If that is the case, then you are not smart enough to decide on whether what to buy or not.
Always go for those worth your investment and never go to those just cheap but do not have the quality that you still look. If you have really a passion for hunting, money is not a problem anymore because it will last longer rather than buying some cheap ones on the market.
Prefer for those high-quality brands from trail cameras, SD cards, batteries up to the maintenance of each product. As a hunter, you want of course those top performing cameras that take amazing shots in the woods always. Do not settle for less if it is achievable to get more that can meet your expectation.
Wrong camera alignment
The camera may be unaligned after you change the batteries. In changing camera batteries, you exert a lot of force and it may be the cause of camera alignment and will make your pictures get wasted. Be alert to this camera mistakes to still have amazing shots in the woods and not lose frames.