Trail Cams with best battery life
Contributors to this thread:Equipment
From: Lee
09-Mar-20
Curious as to what trail cameras have the best battery life? I bought a couple Moultrie a700i’s and they didn’t last a month with brand new lithium batteries - no more than a 1000 pics. Pretty disappointing to find a dead camera after you let it soak for a few months!
Thanks,
Lee
From: Knife Cobbler
09-Mar-20
browning
From: BULELK1
09-Mar-20
I have my old Primos 35's outside all winter and I just change the 4 D batteries as they got down to 50%. the last change out was back in mid December.
It's been a pretty dang cold winter too.
Good luck, Robb
From: Plum lake
09-Mar-20
All we use it Moultrie cameras. (A's camera series) I've left some out for as long as a year with 3-4000 pictures and still have 40% battery life even through our harsh winters. Maybe you got a couple duds possibly. I've had a couple crap out on me over the years. They just start to drain the batteries then I toss them.
From: Sawpilot75
09-Mar-20
Browning cameras are the best I have seen.
From: wildan
09-Mar-20
I have great luck with Brownings(6),Bushnells were decent also.
From: Manager
09-Mar-20
We leave a 1/2 dozen of our Reconyx out..... 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year. A couple of the HC600's, have not been inside a building for 9 years. They each take thousands & thousands of pics. I change the lithium batteries once a year, in early summer, if they need them or not. The battery strength is still from 70% to 90% on each cam. And have never had a failure on any of our HC600's or XR6's.
From: Corn bore
09-Mar-20
Browning strike force pro best yet for me on batteries. Buchnell and covert have been good.
From: Lee
09-Mar-20
Thx guys. Plum Lake - you might be right - brand new cameras - couldn’t believe they crapped out that quick!
Browning seems to be a great one - Reconyx May be a little out of my price range but have heard great things about them!
Lee
From: wacem
09-Mar-20
X2- Plum Lake, my Moultrie lasted over a year with lithium batteries in Wisconsin.
From: spike78
09-Mar-20
Also don’t use cheap dollar store batteries I made that mistake once. I left a Mountie M80 out in the woods for 2 years and when I checked the pics it showed the camera lasted 1 year and 2 months!
From: Lee
09-Mar-20
Must be an issue - I used brand new energizer lithium batteries.
From: Plum lake
09-Mar-20
Lee I think your cameras are shot. Lithium should definitely take you longer even in cold temps. I don't use lithium batteries cause we run 30 cams and that would be costly we just use the regular Duracell or energizer alkaline ones and get two years out of them
From: Lee
09-Mar-20
I’ll contact them and see if they will stand by them.
Thanks,
Lee
From: WI Shedhead
09-Mar-20
I own reconyx and browning. If you can swallow the price reconyx is the best by far. But I can buy 3 brownings, bear boxes, and python cables for the price of one reconyx when thier on sale
From: Manager
09-Mar-20
Reconyx has a new camera, the Hyperfire 2. It is more competitively priced. Claiming 40,000 images or 2 years on a set of batteries. And, with a 5-year warranty. We haven't tried one yet. As with anybody's trail cam questions. Check out trailcampro.com for unbiased reviews
From: longbeard
09-Mar-20
I own and have owned a bunch of different cameras over the years. The best on batteries by far are the Moultrie and Primos. And yes I only use alkaline batteries
Lee, I think you will be very happy with their customer service!!
From: drycreek
09-Mar-20
In my experience, Browning followed by Bushnell, but take that with a grain of salt because I’ve only used three other brands.
From: Dale06
09-Mar-20
I use several a Reconyx 500 s. I use lithium AA batteries. They last at least six months and 1000s of pics.
From: JohnMC
09-Mar-20
couple years ago I bought some Stealth cams off camofire. Been really impressed with their battery life, especially for the price.
From: Shuteye
09-Mar-20
Browning has been the best for me when it comes to battery life. I have several different brands of trail cams and the Browning is best. I use 32 GB cards. When I check the cams I carry spare cards and switch. I have a viewer but like to look at them on my computer. I also have good luck with Moultrie and a Cabela camera as far as battery life. The Browning cams will take excellent videos.
From: MDcrazyman
10-Mar-20
I have a 2014 spy point behind my house and after almost 2 years with regular alkaline it is still taking pics. its insane. That camera has had the best battery life and actual overall life that I have had.
From: dmann
10-Mar-20
Primos proof cams have been good for me
From: wildan
10-Mar-20
Also battery life depends on "how many pictures/video's"that it took over "what" period of time;and the weather also.Our cold weather up North kill s alkaline batteries quick compared to lithium's. I have had Brownings take 2,000 twenty second video's in six months and still have plenty of battery left. .
From: DT1963
11-Mar-20
Browning are by far the best cameras overall I have run. Battery life doesn't mean anything if your detection circuit is crap, and/or recovery is not consistent. For public land, i.e. black flash, I don't think you can beat most of the Dark Ops models and for video nothing touches Browning Special Ops (in all categories) in my experience. I am currently running 45+ cameras in 3 states and browning is by far my camera of choice. I typically run alkaline except for winter months, or if I plan on leaving cameras out all year in a location w/o checking it. Last year I found a browning dark ops I had forgotten about, it was out in a swamp for 15+ months and had over 4000+ pics on it - to my surprise it still was taking pictures. I was using cheap grocery store alkaline AAs that I buy in the 100 pack. If a person is planning on checking cameras monthly or every other month, unless its in subfreezing weather, I personally would go with alkaline 100% of the time and just refresh them when they get to below 30%.
From: wilbur
11-Mar-20
Browning cameras are good/excellent.
Covert cameras are poor at best.
From: JL
11-Mar-20
IMO....Browning and Moultrie are the best mid-priced cams. I only do HD vids with my Moultires. They are fantastic vids in the newer Moultries. For the most part....I haven't seen too many vids better than ones from the higher end, newer Moultries. For pics....ya do not need to take the high MP ones unless they are specialty pics for publication. Lithium batteries can be funny things. You can't mix used ones with new, unused ones. I also try to use ones with the same expiration year to keep them standardized. For cold weather ops....IMO lithium is the only way to go.
From: Grunt-N-Gobble
11-Mar-20
Here's another vote for Browning cams. I run 5 using lithium batteries and the battery life has been excellent.
From: kyrob
12-Mar-20
I have been using Covert cameras for years. I get thousands of pics on a set of copper top dura cells. I have a couple that have been going for 5 years . I usually go through 2 sets of batteries a year in each camera. Also, the ones I buy are around 100 bucks each.
From: Bowfinatic
12-Mar-20
Bushnell with lithiums
From: bighorn
13-Mar-20
reconyx
From: sticksender
13-Mar-20
Still running all Coverts. The non-cellular models I get roughly 20000-30000 pics per set of copper-top batteries, depending on temps, and depending on the amount of flash activity. All pics, no video.
