After leaving your trail cameras out shooting photos for a while, it is exciting to finally peruse its contents. As it happens to often, disappointment sets in due to several lapses in image quality management. As you flip between misaligned, dark pictures, you sigh with frustration.
Game scouting is what most hunters buy trail cameras for. They are our remote eyes in the field when we physically cannot be there. Due to their unobtrusiveness and discretion, trail cameras are also used for home security.
Effective and efficient hunting strategy is based on trail camera data. It is hard to pinpoint a deer’s schedule and home range without the input of a trail camera. Wildlife trail cameras off a secret glimpse into animal life and movement.
Considerations for the Best Trail Camera Photos
For best results, several things need to be considered on how to get the most effective trail camera pictures. Do this before hanging your deer scouting camera. To be precise, there are 5 C’s of great game tracking camera photos that need to deliberated. Below, we discuss them:
The Five C’s or Tips on How to Get the Most Effective Trail Camera Pictures
Consider every one of these, and your photos will thank you for it by being clear and crisp. None of them are hard to put into place but all of them carry significant upside. Go through these game camera photo tips to make sure your next batch are something to be proud of.
1. Camera Angle
Trail camera positioning is among the most important considerations, due to how much it affects the final product. Picking the wrong angle results knee shots, sky/foliage shots or half-body shots. The idea is not to mount too high or too low, about four feet above ground is ideal.
Depending on what you are shooting, aim lower if it is turkey, higher if it is a taller animal. Always ensure the camera is pointed towards the correct spot. A mineral lick camera should be aimed straight at it, with space above to capture the animal.
Deer trail cams should not be positioned perpendicularly to the path, as this will result in many missed triggers. Instead, hang it aimed either down or up the trail, for leaving or approaching shots. These type of shots have their uses, sometimes in place of regular broadside photos.
2. Contrast
Contrast in this context is your trail camera’s photos light exposure. Too little and the images will be too dark while too much will make them overexposed. There are a number of solutions that you can implement:
The simplest one involves hanging your trail camera unexposed to direct sunlight. A shaded forest setup will naturally moderate light levels all day long. Open fields leave trail cameras overexposed to the glare of sunlight.
When setting up over a food plot, face the trail camera north, avoiding the glare of the southerly sun. West or east facing trail cameras produce washed out evening and morning photos, respectively. General rule of thumb is, north is most ideal.
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3. Color
While on first review, a photo may look brilliant but in further scrutiny, the colors come off unbalanced. This takes away from the quality of the images.
Light exposure and contrast above are closely linked to color.
4. Composition
Avoid areas featuring too much background ‘junk’ (e.g. weed patches, blow-down, brush). While setting your game camera up, keep in mind the aesthetics of the area as well, as it could produce a shot worthy of framing.
5. Chips
Wildlife camera chips make a world of difference on the eventual photos produced. The most affordable, high-quality and high-capacity chip is the one to go for. Photos of higher resolution take up a lot of room, therefore to begin with, 8 GB is a minimum.
For video, 16 GB and 32 GB are more preferable. Some game camera models require particular, newer cards. Any other card would lower the quality of the pictures.
Photos saved on your card should never be deleted while in your PC. Doing this can negatively affect the workings of the card. Copy on to your computer the photos you like, then use the trail camera to format the card after installation. This deletes all that is saved on the card, starting afresh.
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