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Game Trail Cameras There are several key factors to look at when considering the purchase of a game camera which includes: cost, image quality, trigger speed, fl ash type, warranty, durability, battery life, photo storage, photo and video capabilities, ease of operation and even security. Cost The market is fl ooded with different types and varieties of cameras. Most will do a reasonable job and take pretty good quality photos and/or video. You will fi nd them ranging from a little under $100 each to top of the line cameras in excess of $1000. Cost is the most prohibitive factor for most when it comes to purchasing cameras. Sometimes you get what you pay for. Image Quality You would be hard pressed to fi nd many manufacturers producing cameras that aren't capable of at least being able to take pictures of up to 12 mega pixels. The image clarity is exceptional and colour photos can help easily identify individual animals. Trigger Speed This is the time delay between detection and image capture. For wary, fl ighty animals it's recommended that a fast trigger speed be considered. Anything less than half a second would be ideal. Flash Type Infrared (low-glow / no-glow) or white light? Which is better? This depends on your methodology. Infrared cameras tend to be less noticeable by wildlife compared to white light. Infrared fl ashes traditionally have quicker trigger speeds than white light models however recent developments in LED technology seems to have closed this divide. One downside to infrared is that night time photos are monochromatic which mostly appear in relatively low resolution as compared to white light fl ash which produce apparent higher resolution, full colour images at night. No- glow infrared is said to be completely invisible to game and other hunters and therefore ideal for security surveillance. Warranty and Durability For those that use cameras for wildlife surveys frequently, like government biosecurity offi cers, you could assume that the life expectancy of the unit to only be about as long as the warranty. For intermittent or ad hoc deployment, you would expect this to be considerably longer. It is recommended that when choosing a camera, try to choose a brand that has a local distributor that can either repair or replace the camera under warranty in a timely manner. If repairers are local too, that is a bonus. Battery Life It is well known that digital cameras work best when operated with Lithium batteries thanks to their long, slow discharge rate. They operate almost twice as long as ordinary Alkaline batteries and more than 20% longer than NiMH rechargeable batteries. For short periods of deployment ordinary Alkaline batteries are entirely suitable and relatively inexpensive to replace as compared to Lithium and NiMH. Photo Storage Some cameras have an inbuilt storage system whereas most will have SD (Secure Digital) card storage. SD cards Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (NSW) Inc. 17 Cameras are becoming common place among many hunters these days.