|
Stealth Cam I390 ReviewThe Stealth Cam I390 is a 3.0 mega pixel camera that doesn’t have some of the bells and whistles of some of the other Stealth Cam cameras so it has a friendlier price tag. The I390 takes OK pictures. Generally it takes pictures you can see but falls behind several of the other trail cameras. You can read more about the picture quality and see sample pictures here. This trail camera operates on eight D size batteries. This is a lot of batteries and could get expensive if battery life is not good. It will also operate on a rechargeable 6 volt battery. I’m not sure why they did not design this camera to operate on the rechargeable 12 volt battery like their older models. The alkaline D size batteries lasted for six months. That is very good battery life. I used rechargeable D size batteries and the low battery light was on after two weeks although the camera still took my picture. The alkaline batteries sure seem to be the batteries to use with this trail camera. The I390 imprints the date and time on each picture. I had some difficulty setting the camera up. For some reason I had trouble setting the date and time and generally working my way through the setup process. I’m not sure if buttons were not working as they were supposed to or I just messed up, but it wasn’t as easy as it was supposed to be. Subsequent changes in the delay between pictures has been done with little pain but it isn't the friendliest camera I've used. A strap is provided to attach the camera to a tree as well as a metal bracket that screws into both the tree and the camera. I’ll use the strap, which works well but does not provide any locking capability. There also is not any way to use other devices to lock the camera to a tree either. The Stealth Cam I390 has 64 MB of internal memory, which is quite good as compared to other cameras. This would hold about 120 high quality images. We’ll use a CF memory card to hold images and make it much easier to download them. USB and video cables are provided to download images and view them on a television. There is not an LCD screen provided on the I390, which is one of the reasons why the I390 is cheaper than the other models. I like to have a viewing screen but the poor quality of our previous Stealth Cam and the cheaper price of this model influenced my decision to purchase this model. Time delays vary from 1 minute to 60 minutes with quite a few options in between these two. There are many time delays to chose from but I’m would rather have some delays under one minute. One feature that helps the one minute time delay is that the camera can take up to three pictures upon each activation. There is a test mode, but you have to make sure you switch the camera from test mode to the on mode or it will not take pictures. The Stealth Cam I390 does have video capability. One last thing I might mention is that this is a large camera and is quite heavy, especially when eight batteries are installed. This may not be a big consideration but could be depending on exactly how you use your camera. I have given the Stealth Cam I390 a C for an overall grade. It has operated well for us, battery life has been good and the pictures are OK. On the other hand the camera is large and heavy and picture quality isn't good enough that I will use this camera when I'm looking to put out my best units. I do have to say that so far it has been a dependable camera and I was pleased with the alkaline battery life.
|
