Tactacam vs Moultrie

[Teamhoyt]

Whats everyone's thoughts. I currently have tactacam cell cams but I see I can buy a 2 pack of moultrie for the price of 1 tactacam.

[cervidchasers]

Calling @phade..our expert

[mowin]

Biggest negative I've read is picture quality, but no personal experience.  

Tactacams are rock solid, and there CS is top notch. 

[phade]

Battery life is good w Moultrie but they also take 16 AA. They have audible filter clicks and picture quality is not nearly as good in standard def. And plan wise they’re a bit more for unlimited. I’d only run if I were placing them in areas where I wouldn’t be worried about spooking deer.

[ChevyZr297]

Ive always found this YouTube channel on trail cams very useful.
 

 

[Trial153]

I am not a TC  fan at this point.  I had terrible CS when  some pros leaked and died. 

We still have 10 running on one far, Gen 2…they are reliable I will give that.  Couple negatives at least i experienced. I know they miss some pictures, watched deer walk right in front and got nothing.  I hung them with a second cam on the same tree and got pictures on it that weren’t on the TC, neither sent nor on the SD card.  The biggest negative i have with them is Deer for whatever reason ( sound most likely ) are alerted to them and I have seen big older bucks, does as well make an effort to avoid them.  

 

[GreenDrake]

Im extremely disappointed in my tactacams. 2 EAT batteries..1 will not power on and stay on. CS has been monitoring them. Agree there is a problem and want me to send them in for service.  Im over it. I told them I want 3 new cameras or im just going to trash them and cancel my 6 camera unlimited plan.  I would think they would rather retain my subscription versus their cost for new cameras. Of course they started blaming Energizer…yada yada.  Im over it. Eating batteries is a known issue after 2 years of use. 

[mowin]

The only tactacam I'm having issues with is my gen I.  

All the other are solid. I need to call CS when I'm next to the cam to figure out what is going on. 

[sbuff]

My two moultires have been in the woods two years as of 9/22 with 16 lithium batteries. I mix in video and pics ,I pay the yearly price and get a slight discount ,it's 8 or 9 per month . No photo,video or mechanical issues at all to date . Can't speak on tacta cam but I much prefer Moultrie over spy point 

I am not a fan of moultires lithium battery pack ,I did not even get a year out of that ,maybe 10 months 

[Keith Nehrke]

I run external 10 Ah batteries, so it's not an issue for me. The Moultrie Edge was okay, except for pic quality - Phade nailed it - but the Pro version was a disaster. I sold all of them, including the Pro they sent to replace my unit (unopened). In fact, I've tried every new Moultrie that's come out since the VX7000i, and the only ones I still use are the three VX7000i  (which are great). That tells you something about how I feel.

All the rest of our cameras are Tactacam. The XB and Gen2 are bulletproof. We opt to use the "Xtra" plan which adds $9 a month but covers all of the cameras on your plan and allows for free HD and video downloads. Then we set the camera to take a single image followed by a video. That saves on our picture allotment. If the buck looks good, we request the video. Easy peasy. 

Using the timer feature to restrict operation to between 5 pm and 10 am also reduces the number of false positives and squirrel pictures. 

[Trial153]

Here is a picture of a buck today.  This is another gripe i have with Tacacam…Any significant foliage and the pictures  suck 

[phade]

For those with any battery life issues I would encourage making sure you’re on the most recent firmware and use a new SD card. I’ve “fixed” quite a few people’s issues with that process. The commands for settings changes and HD images actually go through the SD card. I’ve seen scenarios where bad sections or a corrupted file on cards basically hang the cam up into a “loop” of activity draining battery faster. 

The only time where I’ve seen the power draws legitimately be a cam issue is when the LEDs stay fired on constantly which is a bad cam at that point that needs to be warrantied. And once where I simply couldn’t diagnose it despite making the attempts. And thats out of probably 100 of said scenarios. The overwhelming majority of times it ends up being the combo of firmware and SD card that fixes it. I did so many last year year at the shop, I was doing them for free and word of mouth led to people making donations to me to fix them up. I think this is where a lot of the narrative about battery drain comes from. Along with the larger sent images and higher consumption from HD and vids.

Edited Saturday at 07:48 PM by phade

[Trial153]

1 hour ago, phade said:

For those with any battery life issues I would encourage making sure you’re on the most recent firmware and use a new SD card. I’ve “fixed” quite a few people’s issues with that process. The commands for settings changes and HD images actually go through the SD card. I’ve seen scenarios where bad sections or a corrupted file on cards basically hang the cam up into a “loop” of activity draining battery faster. 

The only time where I’ve seen the power draws legitimately be a cam issue is when the LEDs stay fired on constantly which is a bad cam at that point that needs to be warrantied. And once where I simply couldn’t diagnose it despite making the attempts. And thats out of probably 100 of said scenarios. The overwhelming majority of times it ends up being the combo of firmware and SD card that fixes it. I did so many last year year at the shop, I was doing them for free and word of mouth led to people making donations to me to fix them up. I think this is where a lot of the narrative about battery drain comes from. Along with the larger sent images and higher consumption from HD and vids.

Info and CS like this why you should be buying your Cams from Phade…add in great prices and shipping, he is fantastic guy to deal with 

[mowin]

19 minutes ago, Trial153 said:

Info and CS like this why you should be buying your Cams from Phade…add in great prices and shipping, he is fantastic guy to deal with 

Agree.  My last 3 were from him.  

[cas]

I put up a Tacticam Reveal Pro 3.0 labor day weekend. I'm torn because I'm not sure if the spot I put it really sucks this bad, or if the cam does.