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Cuddeback Trail Camera
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Our Cuddeback trail camera has now been out for a while and we've had a good chance to look at some pictures.
The quality looks pretty good, so far the quality looks a little better than the 3.0 MP Stealth Cam that we are testing. You can go to the Cuddeback Picture Quality page to see some pictures and see why we gave it a B.
I tested the Cuddeback trail camera against the EagleEye and the Cuddeback was faster. It has the fastest power up time of all of the cameras that I have tested. There wasn't any need to test it against the rest of the cameras since the EagleEye was the quickest of them.
The Cuddeback trail camera operates on four D batteries. Four fresh Energizer batteries were completely dead after five weeks and took 402 pictures. The instructions say that fresh batteries should take about 1500 pictures. Another set of slightly used batteries lasted for three weeks. We purchased a set of NiMH rechargeable batteries and a charger. While setup at a deer feeder they took were dead in 8 days and took 56 pictures, went dead in 9 days and only took 22 pictures and took 115 pictures in 9 days. Set up in food plots the batteries never lasted a full week and the Cuddeback had only take a hand full of pictures. I've would not recommend rechargeable batteries in this game camera.
Setup and operation is not extremely difficult. The Cuddeback digital trail camera comes ready to use by just installing the batteries but like most of the digital scouting cameras you will need to get into the instructions to make changes in the operating parameters. It does reset to picture taking mode even if you forget to put it in live mode unless you have disarmed the unit. This is good for forgetful people like me.
Attaching the Cuddeback trail camera to a tree is a weak point in my opinion. There are two methods provided. One is a screw that you use to attach it to a tree. I do not want to take extra tools into the woods with me and anyone could just unscrew the whole unit from the tree. The other attachment method is a cable that goes around the tree and tightens inside of the unit with a wing nut. Both of these security methods rely on you putting a small padlock on the case to keep people from opening the case where they could easily detach the unit, but a padlock is not provided with the Cuddeback.
There are also no eyes or other means to attach a better locking cable, such as a python locking cable, to the unit.
The Cuddeback trail camera has an internal memory that is capable of storing 20 pictures at a 680 x 480 resolution. (680 x 480 is the only resolution available with the internal memory.) This is a low resolution and does not supply pictures that can be blown up to see any detail. I have purchased a 256 mb memory card as I do with each of our digital scouting cameras. The resolution is 2048 x 1536 when using a compact flash card to store the images and is the only resolution available when using a memory card.
There are no cables provided with the unit to download the pictures or view them and the unit does not have an LCD viewing screen. There is not a way of viewing your pictures provided with the Cuddeback digital trail camera. I like the cameras that have good viewing screens on them so I can take a quick look at the pictures right in the woods.
Time delays range from 1 to 60 minutes in 1 minute increments. Although a delay of less than 1 minute can be handy when putting the camera along a trail or food plot those provided are acceptable.
The Cuddeback trail camera will take short video clips as all of the other scouting cameras do.
After nine months our Cuddeback trail cameras has quit working properly. We're going to call their tech support a call and see what they say.
This 3.0 Cuddeback Trail Camera is no longer available but Cuddeback has come out with newer models.
Return from the Cuddeback Trail Camera Reveiw to the Digital Trail Camera Reviews.
