Raccoon crossing the creek

Had several cameras set on creeks and this raccoon was the only animal that used the trail. Thought for sure I would get more pictures with all the rain we've had lately. The weather has been bad for getting anything other than raccoons and possums.

Porcupine cruising past

This is one of my predator trail cameras I was wanting a bobcat or coyote picture up close, but had lots of rabbits and this porcupine walking past. The rabbits are abundant in this area which makes it very good in the fall and winter for coyotes. I try to check these once a week to keep a log on where the animals are feeding during different times of the year. It helps to understand their feeding habits and makes them easier to photograph.

Black Bear on a good trail

Once I found a good bear trail I followed it till I came to a good location with a colorful background, then because I was trying to get a head on picture, I used a Sony 600 which is just a little slower than the 41. This gave a few more steps for the bear to get closer to the camera. Everything worked as planned on this photo, but I had quite a few in this location that were failures.

Best way to set up a trail camera

This is the way I set up all my trail or game cameras. Find the animal you want to photograph and the trail it uses, then locate the best background to show the animal, setup the camera and with a different camera take a picture by holding the extra camera up against the trail cam to show the picture you will get and look at it to see if any changes need to be done.

For smaller animals you need the camera set low and to make sure it gets the entire body up close. Try to keep the sun behind the camera and shadows to a minimum. Hide the camera so the animal won't see it as it walks in front of the camera from the sides. I will show two pictures of todays setup for predators, bobcats and coyotes. The one with my hat is the view from the trail camera using a different camera for aiming. The second is showing the setup and how I hide the camera in the brush so it's hid from the approaching animal. On this setup I did set the camera lower than the trail for a better angle.

Porcupine taking a short cut

This was taken with an Olympus 380 game camera, an older model camera that still takes great pictures and is very fast on trails. The flash is a little weak but it makes up for it with how fast it takes a picture up close.

The log is high above the water and set the camera up to get a bobcat maybe on the log. Did get a coyote, possum and this porcupine. Logs work good for pictures because the animals are easy to focus on and they walk slower for safety.

Sony S600 used for trails

There's been a lot of opinions about the speed of the Sony 600 when used on trails. I have always believed it has enough speed to take a quick enough picture so it would work well for trails. It does have a great flash for distance and works fine for close pictures. Here are examples of the flash set in auto mode so it reduces the flash on close animals.

The buck is on a trail 15 feet from the camera which is about the max distance I use, and the second is very close and shows how the camera in auto flash works great.