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Moultrie GameSpy 200 ReviewWe have been having a hard time getting the Moultrie GameSpy 200 to take pictures of animals in the woods. Over the last two week period the Moultrie took 5 pictures. All of these were taken on the day I put the camera out. It did take one picture of me when I took the camera down. We then took the Moultrie GameSpy 200 back to the house and it took 48 pictures of us walking around in the house in about 24 hours. It seemed to wait to take a picture until we walked past it twice, similar to the problems we had when we tested the power-up time. I'm thinking that maybe this unit doesn't like taking pictures of wildlife, it just likes people. Finally it took 65 pictures over a two day period and let us see what the picture quality looked like. From these 65 pictures we have given the Moultrie GameSpy 200 a B for picture quality. The only digital scouting cameras that we have that take better pictures to date are those that have a real camera in them. Take a look at our picture quality explanation here. The Moultrie GameSpy 200 uses a 6 volt lantern battery. We received poor battery life with the older Moultrie 100 getting only around 100 plus pictures with each battery. The original battery in the Moultrei GameSpy 200 has lasted for 6 weeks but it only took 145 pictures. Six weeks would be considers OK, but 145 pictures is not very many pictures since the 256mb memory card could hold as many as 400 pictures. All and all this isn't very good battery life. I purchased a rechargeable 6 volt battery at Cabela’s to use with this camera. It has given us better service with the rechargeable battery but it's still tough to get it to trigger. We've been using it in food plots and it takes from 5 to 10 pictures each week. I think it's still missing deer since our better cameras take a lot more pictures each week. When placed at a feeder this trail camera does alright, although it still seems to miss some pictures, and the rechargeable battery life has been very good. Operation of the unit is not extremely difficult. I have to use the directions but if all works well and it is the only camera that you own you could probably master the set up without much of a problem. Continued use hasn't proven to be too difficult. I tested the Moultrie GameSpy 200 against the Cuddeback, Woodland SpyCam and the EagleEye. It was the last one to take a picture and I had to walk past it twice to get it to take a picture. The was the same thing the older Moultrie 100 did when I tested it last fall. There hasn't been any improvement made in power up time. It misses most activity that goes on in front of the unit. Other cameras have taken hundreds of pictures while positioned at the same location. There is no locking device included although a plastic lockable latch is molded into the case. I’ll use bungee straps to attach it to a tree and forget about the lockable latch. If someone steals the unit there isn’t any use losing a perfectly good lock as well. There is not an LCD screen on the unit but both USB and video cables are provided. I had a little trouble downloading with the USB cable the first time but was successful the second time. Maybe I didn't follow the directions properly the first time. I’m not exactly sure, but it looks as though the internal memory may be 16 mb and can hold 100 standard resolution (640 x 480) pictures, 40 high resolution (1024 x 768) pictures and 10 enhanced resolution (2048 x 1536) pictures. I’ve purchased another 256 mb SD memory card. Five time delays include 1, 5, 10, 30 and 60 minutes. This selection isn’t quite as good as some of the other cameras available but the range is adequate. According to the directions the Moultrie GameSpy 200 can be used as a handheld digital camera but as I have said with some of the other similar digital scouting cameras I can’t see myself or anyone else taking this to the soccer field or dance recital to capture pictures of their kids in action. Overall there seems to be little changed from the earlier version of the Moultrie except for the 3.1 MP sensor so we’ll have to see how it goes. This change has improved the picture quality but I'd like to see them work on the sensitivity of the unit. For some reason it is very shy about taking pictures. Through Cabelas, 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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