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Leaf River Scouting CameraI would have to rate the picture quality well below the quality of the scouting cams that use the Sony 4.1 and similar to those taken by the Bushnell. The pictures do not have the sharpness as compared to the pictures taken by the Sony camera in either the SpyCam or EagleEye. The pictures taken in good sunlight are the best. On the other hand anytime near dawn or dusk, most of the pictures at night and any time in sub-optimal lighting are not very sharp. You can take a look at our reasoning for the picture quality grade here. The Leaf River Scouting Camera operates on 4 D batteries and 3 C batteries. This is more batteries than any of the other three cameras that I have used. The first set of batteries have died and lasted for 6 months. This isn't bad for one set of batteries. The initial set-up of the camera was not real difficult but over the weeks I've had some difficulty getting the switches to operate just as the directions state. You have to keep the directions handy, I’ve made an extra copy to keep in my backpack. Since I’ve used four different cameras in the last year I think that the directions for each camera get mixed up in my feeble mind. My biggest concern for the Leaf River Scouting Camera is the power up time. I noticed when I had it in my house that it seemed to take a little longer to take a picture than my experience with the other cameras. I did a little test with the Leaf River and the EagleEye. I sat both cameras on a chair, one on top of the other in a dark room and walked in front of them. Over several attempts the Leaf River was about 3 seconds slower than the EagleEye. The batteries for the motion sensor control in the Leaf River are new; the battery in the EagleEye has been in the unit since November (just under 4 months). Throughout our testing the Leaf River continued to be the slowest until the Moultrie arrived. The Leaf River scouting camera comes with a strap to attach it to a tree and a bar to lock the camera closed. The lock is not provided. When the bar is locked, this does not lock the camera to the tree, it just locks the camera case closed. I used the locking cable from my old 35mm Camtrakker to lock the camera to the tree and did not use the bar. The internal memory is reported to hold up to 50 pictures. I bought a 256 mb compact flash card and it has taken over 500 pictures over one three week period. The camera comes with a USB cable to connect it to a PC and an RCA cable to connect to a TV to view the pictures. There is no LCD screen on the model that I purchased but a model is available with a 1.6 inch viewing screen. I like to have the viewing screen right on the unit itself. I like to take a look at the pictures right away. Time delay between pictures can be set for nine different settings from 1 to 90 minutes. You can manually take pictures with this unit but there is not a digital camera, per se, that can be removed and used separate from the rest of the unit. I can't see anyone actually using this camera as a personal digital camera. The Leaf River scouting camera has the capability of taking video clips in varying lengths from 3 to 90 seconds. I have not tried out this function. My overall impression of the Leaf River scouting camera is that it has performed adequately but the picture quality is disappointing. Another concern is the power up time. You would have to make sure that you had the camera set up at an angle to the trail and not too close or the slower power up time could be a big issue. Leaf River does offer a viewing screen on a more expensive model as well as an infrared model.
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