Covert Illuminator Review

Covert Illuminator Review

Model # 2915 | Covert Illuminator Owners Manual

Pros

• Color night videos & photos
• Good daytime photos
• 2" Internal Viewer
• Fantastic battery life

Cons

• Slow trigger & recovery speed

Trailcampro Analysis

The Covert Illuminator is a white LED trail camera. The LEDs produce an extremely bright white flash when taking pictures or videos at night. This enables the camera to take color night pictures/videos.

Quality of Design:

Dimensions: 5.5" x 4" x 3" | Battery Type: 12 AA Batteries | External Battery Jack: 6 Volt

The Illuminator has a built in bracket for a python cable lock and a 1/4" x 20 threaded insert on the bottom for a Slate River Mount.

This is one of the few cameras on the market that still has an internal picture viewer (2"). You can view pictures on this screen from the inside of the camera.

One of the most impressive features of this camera is the long list of programmable functions. Not only does the Illuminator have overwrite function, password protection, and PIR controls; this is one of a very few that has start/stop time. This means the camera can be set to turn on at custom time intervals during the day. There are only a handful of cameras that have this feature.

Programming the camera is incredibly easy and intuitive. You shouldn't have problems getting this camera up and running without looking at the manual. Here is a look at many of the popular setting options:

• 1-3 multi-shot
• 5 s. - 60 s. video clips
• Time Lapse: custom start/stop time. 5 s. - 8 hr. time intervals
• Photo Stamp: Time, date, temperature and moon phase
• Picture + Video Mode: No
• Start/Stop Time: Yes
• Password Protection: Yes
• SD Card Overwrite: Yes
• PIR Settings: Yes | High, Low
• Flash Settings: No

Detection Circuit:

Picture Trigger & Recovery Speed: 1.08 s. / 5.8 s. | Video Trigger & Recovery Speed: 1.49 s. / 5.1 s. | Detection Range: 60 ft.

Trigger and recovery times have improved slightly on the 2016 Illuminator scouting camera. However, they are still below average.

Detection zone is decent, it is just the overall detection capabilities are hampered by the slow, methodical recovery time.

Picture Quality:

Photo resolution: 12, 8, 5 or 3 mpxl | Video Resolution: 320 x 240 w/ audio | Flash Type: White LED

Day pictures have great color and clarity. They are vivid and very true to life. We saw a bit of blur during the day, but nothing alarming.

Night pictures come from the white LED flash. This enables the Illuminator to take color night images (and videos). These are typical of white LED pictures - colorful but blurry. Flash range is decent but not spectacular.

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Battery Life:

Resting Power (on): 3.36 mW | Daytime Power Consumption: 2.38 Ws | Nighttime Power Consumption: 3.15 Ws

For 2016, the Illuminator has greatly improved battery life. Resting power dropped almost 2 milliwatts. For a white LED scouting camera, this is incredible battery data.

The camera operates on 12 AA batteries. You will get the best performance out of your camera if you use Lithium batteries. Alkaline batteries will work, but they are very unreliable and drain faster in cold weather. The Illiminator will work with Tenergy Nimh Rechargeable batteries.

If this camera were to take 35 day pictures and 35 night pictures every 24 hours, this camera could last 11.2 months in the field (with lithiums).

Covert Illuminator Conclusion:

The Covert Illuminator has improved significantly in 2016. Better battery life and a slight improvement to detection speed being the biggest improvements. We would like to see less blurry night images, but that seems to be the case with every white LED scouting camera. Buy this camera if you need an affordable trail camera that takes color night videos.

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