A few days ago, I posted the first test video shot using 30 second exposures with a GoPro3 camera, located at our home in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
For my next test series I set the GoPro3 Camera, to fire the photos at 10 second intervals. The number of photos captured before the battery expired was almost 1100, netting a much longer and smoother looking video.
The wildlife camera experiment continues.
A few nights ago it captured a coyote walking right up to our front door.
The camera only fired a few times that night, and unfortunately none of the still were usable.
After having so many foggy photos (see blog entry) I decided to fab a quick hood out of cardboard to see if it would help in any way. It’s not pretty. I didn’t want to invest a bunch of time in something nice if this wasn’t going to work. It’s an MVP if you will… with quality to match! LOL
This is what the current camera orientation looks like during daylight hours:
Checking the camera the next morning, it seemed to have helped out quite a bit. We had some deer drop by for about an hour or so. Instead of the normally fuzzy images, these came our a lot better.
My plan is to move the camera again, maybe to a higher point and aim it downward, using the camera body to provide more cover for the lens. So far this is my most favored location, but I’m not done experimenting quite yet.
Each morning that I get up and check the camera, there is a lot of dew upon it, including the lens. It has a small built in cover but it’s not enough to keep it from getting clouded.
Last night around 2:00 AM we had what looks like you coyote visitor again… but.. as you can see, the blur is from the water collected on the face of the lens housing.
Video is the same story. Little 10 second clip shows the animal strolling off. Definitely some sort of canine.
I think the next step is to look for a small birdhouse, and use that to possibly house the camera and keep the dew from forming on the lens. When it was positioned under an overhang, the dew didn’t seem to be an issue. That is my though process regardless.
Well, with the move to a new mountain community, out of the city and the criminal element.. we now have something more interesting (and less dangerous) to watch. 🙂
I recently purchased an IR wildlife camera and have been testing out various locations around the yard for it.
One the first night testing, it captured this coyote visiting us around 9:00 PM.
The next time, at almost at the same time, another was captured. Could be the same one, but we know there are several in the area:
Earlier that same night, we heard what sounded like 5-10 coyotes attacking/eating something just up the hill from us. It was very loud, and the dog was quite distressed by it all, staying very agitated and on alert for hours afterwards.
The camera just happened to trip about 20 min. into the “event”, and it caught this audio. I had to punch it up a bit to hear much of anything, but it’s there.
Last night was a much calmer evening. We we woke up in the morning we noticed that some reflective posts were knocked over near the car (they were just leaning against the car port posts). The camera tripped around 2:00 AM, but nothing was seen in the still photos, and most of the video until the last 5 seconds, this little thing was captured. We know there are a number of rabbits, and it looks like maybe this was one hopping around on the driveway. Or a ghost!!! (lol). You can call it whatever you want.
I’m not sure I’m going to leave the camera there.. it doesn’t seem to work as well with just the blacktop in view. More testing is needed.
After moving into the new compound, I’ve started testing out time lapse photography again. Using a GoPro 3, and moving to various locations around the house, I will eventually find the sweet spot I like.
Here is the first short (5 second) test video from these efforts: