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Moultrie Game Watcher 100I purchased the Moultrie Game Watcher 100 at the start of Labor Day weekend and had the opportunity to start the testing right away at our hunting property. In two days the Moultrie digital camera took about 84 pictures for us to look at. From what we have seen the picture quality from the Moultrie game camera is poor. Most pictures taken with a flash are washed out and when the animal is close it is washed out as well. The pictures that are farther away are not washed out quite as bad but I like to get the animal as close as possible for more detail. Out of the 228 pictures that we got with the Moultrie 69 were as good as the picture of the turkey below. You can read more about the Moultrie picture quality and see some of the pictures here. The Moultrie Game Watcher 100 operates on one 6-volt battery. According to the instructions the unit will operate for about 20 days with a fresh 6-volt battery. You can purchase a rechargeable battery but I have not tried this and have heard that some are successful and some are not. I’ve become enamored with re-chargeable batteries over the last year using digital scouting cameras and you could quickly go broke buying regular 6-volt batteries for this camera. After the initial 84 pictures the Moultrie didn't take any more pictures before the battery went dead. I put an Energizer in it next and it took 144 pictures before draining this battery. The initial set-up of the Moultrie Game Watcher 100 is relatively easy once you get the hang of it. The entire instruction manual only encompasses about four pages and is easy to understand, but similar to the Bushnell TrailScout the ease doesn’t allow for a lot of flexibility. The LCD status display is nice. It tells you the number of pictures taken and battery strength among other things. The power-up time was very disappointing in my tests. I had four other cameras to test the Moultrie Game Watcher 100 against including the EagleEye, Leaf River, Penn’s Woods and Woodland SpyCam. For some reason the Moultrie digital camera never took my picture the first time I passed by the cameras. It always waited until I walked back past a second time before it would take the picture. There was no locking device included with the Moultrie Game Watcher 100 but there is a lockable latch on the case where you could use a small padlock. A padlock is not included. The holes in the case are not large enough for a Python locking cable but allow the use of bungee straps to attach it to a tree. Straps are provided to attach the unit to a tree but they are rather weak; I just used our bungee cords. The internal memory will hold 24 high-resolution pictures and 100 standard resolution pictures. If the internal memory is used the only way to view the pictures is by downloading them using a USB cable that is not provided. I’ve used the SD memory card from my personal camera to store pictures so far. There is no screen to view pictures with on the Moultrie Game Watcher 100. There is a plug to attach USB cable to but a cable is not provided. Like some of the other cheaper cameras there is no way of viewing your pictures unless you have the correct cables or a memory card and card reader or you will have to go out and purchase them. I would call the time delays available adequate but there are not as many options as with the better cameras. The time delays include 1, 5, 10, 30 and 60 minutes. The manual states and shows that the Moultrie Game Watcher 100 can be used as a personal digital camera but I’ll have to admit that I wouldn’t use that big old thing for a personal camera, especially if I wanted a good picture. Actually I thought that the thought of using it as a personal camera was a bit comical. The Moultrie digital camera is capable of short video clips similar to each of the other cameras that we have tested to date. The one thing that is different with the Moultrie Game Watcher 100 is the laser that aids in determining where the camera is pointed. This is kind of neat, useful and mostly fun to play with. The original Moultrie 100 is more difficult to find these days but through Cabela's, Moultrie is now offering a 4.1 mega pixel digital game camera. I haven't tested this camera but another hunter informed me that they have sped up the power up time but battery life seems to have been lessened.
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