Setting the angle of a game camera is critical where the sky light shows in the photo

When setting up a game camera in the timber or dark area there is a big difference if you allow background light into the center of the picture. Digital cameras have sensors that pick up the light, this controls the flash and different settings for the best photo. But for trail cameras we need to help the camera out in certain situations by keeping the camera aimed low enough to keep the light in the top 1/3 of the picture so the settings will allow the camera to lighten up the photo automatically. This all happens in milliseconds.

Here's a good example I got just the other day when setting a camera on a ridge trail overlooking a canyon. The sky light on the first picture was too bright and so the camera never adjusted for the dark area during the day, this would have been too dark to show up the animal during the day, at night it would have worked fine. The next photo I lowered the camera just a little to keep the light higher, this made the camera adjust to less light and the settings worked fine during the day. I use an old digital (HP D100) for my test photos by holding it in front of the game camera after I have it set up and taking a picture. These photos are just as they came from the camera so you can see the difference in taking more time to aim the camera using what light is avaliable.