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2010 Bushnell Trophy Cam Review
 Quick Facts
• Price: $199.95/249.95
• Trigger Time: 1.381 s
• Recovery Time: 7-11 seconds
• Detection Range: 45 ft.
• Detection Width: Wide
• Flash Range: 45 ft.
• Battery Life: 4-6 months
• Battery Type: 8 AA
• Memory Card: SD Card up to 16 Gig
• Warranty Rate: 0.865%
Pros
- Detection zone matches field of view perfectly
- Incredible battery life
- Extremely small, compact size
- Easy programming
- 7-11 second recovery time
- No remote for programming
Cons
- Only detects out to 45 ft.
- A little blurry on objects within 1 meter
Best thing about this camera
If I can only pick one, I would say having batteries that last 5 months on a set or up to 1 year on lithium batteries is very handy!
Bushnell has made trail cameras for a long time. The Bushnell Trophy Cam is their best game camera yet! Much like the Scoutguard and DLC cameras, the Bushnell Trophy cam comes in a tiny package. Measuring 6" tall X 4" wide you could fit a half dozen cameras in a backpack with room for lunch. Don't let the small size fool you, this camera is capable of taking picture after picture for months on end.
During our initial review of the Bushnell Trophy Cam, we found the trigger speed to be 1.024 seconds. Since roughly May 2010 the firmware on the camera changed. Bushnell recently released a new firmware update, the new trigger speed is 1.381 seconds. This is still very respectable. Our testing also revealed the detection width, or the area the camera can effectively "cover", to be the same exact width as the field of view of the game camera. This is great news! Consider this, as soon as that monster 10 point buck walks into the field of view of the Bushnell Trophy cam, you will have a picture 1.024 seconds later. Depending on whether you have the camera set at either 3, 5 or 8 mpxl, the Trophy Cam can be armed and ready for the next picture in 7, 11 or 15 seconds.
You can use up to a 16 Gig SD Card with the Trophy Cam trail camera. A 2 gig card, set on 3 Mpxl, will hold 2400 daytime pictures or 3200 night pictures. If set on 5 Mpxl, the Trophy Cam will hold 1600 daytime pictures or 2000 night pictures. Obviously, not all of your pictures will be just day or night but this gives you an idea of what to expect.
We noticed that the night flash range goes out to about 45 ft. on average. The 2010 model has 32 infrared LEDs which have greatly improved the night pictures clarity from right to left.
Another great thing about the Bushnell Trophy Cam, is there is no remote to use during programming. All the programming is done by simply opening the camera and punching a few buttons. Programming was a cinch, no problems whatsoever. On the Bushnell Trophy Cam XLT (Viewer) model, you have the option of viewing pictures right there on the camera.
The video quality is 16 frames per second. It is very easy to set to video as well. Simply open the camera, hit menu, go to the "camera mode" setting, and put it in video mode. It is just as simple to switch back to picture mode. Battery life might just be the strongest point of this game camera. You can expect 6 months on a set of 8 AA alkaline or NiMh batteries. If you use Lithium batteries, you may get up to 1 year battery life, depending on the amount of pictures taken during that time period.
During our review of the Bushnell Trophy Cam, the camera only detected out to about 45 ft. Also, the focus is also a little blurry on objects within 1 meter. We did have issues for a while with excessive white-outs on pictures and also "runaway" picture taking (taking pictures every few seconds until the card is full). Bushnell created a new firmware update and had us test the update since late July. Since then, we have not had any of those old issues. I believe the problem has been corrected.
What Else Do You Need?
In order to protect your Trophy Cam, you will want both the Security Case and the Python Lock. The Trophy Cam is not setup to be locked with just a Python Lock alone, it must have the security case as well. There are two types of security cases. The basic security case and the Heavy Duty Security Case. The heavy duty case is 10 guage steel and quite sturdy.
The Python Lock is a 5/16 cable that is 6' long. This is definitely long enough to wrap around any tree outside of a Redwood!
If you live in an area with cold weather, I would strongly recommend the AA NiMh rechargeable batteries and the NiMh charger. NiMh is unaffected by cold weather unlike alkaline batteries. These batteries can also be charged 1000 times.
How Can Tenergy Batteries Save You Big Bucks?
Programming a Bushnell Trophy Cam
Whether you already have a Trophy Cam or just want to know how easy it is to program, read our Bushnell Trophy Cam Setup Guide for complete details on programming a Bushnell Trophy Cam.
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