Trail Watcher 2060

The Trail Watcher 2060 is a digital game camera that uses a Sony DSC-S600 6 Megapixel camera. After testing a few of the major manufactured game cameras over the past several months I wanted to try to find another good quality unit.

Each of the digital game cameras that I’ve tested in the past that have used real digital cameras have given us good quality pictures and reliability. The Sony cameras have also performed very well in the other three cameras that use them.

The daytime pictures we are getting with this camera are fantastic. We had some difficulty with the night pictures in the past but have seen better quality lately. Take a look at our Trail Watcher 2060 picture quality page to read more about our experiences with this cameras picture quality.

We tested the power up time against five other cameras. The power up time was nearly identical to the Woodland SpyCam which uses a Sony 4.1 DSC 40 digital camera. In the testing these two cameras went back and forth depending on which direction I walked. Overall the Trail Watcher is not the fastest or the slowest camera that we have tested. If it continues to perform at the speed of the SpyCam there shouldn’t be any problem.

This unit comes in both wide angle and long range models. The wide angle picks up moving animals quicker and the long range picks up animals farther away from the camera. I'm using the wide angle model.

The Trail Watcher operates on two AA batteries and one 9-volt battery. It’s early in the testing but I expect good battery life, similar to the other Sony cameras that I have. The 9-volt battery is supposed to power the electronics to up to 9 months. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Set-up is relatively easy using two buttons and an LCD screen. After reading the instructions once I was able to set the camera up in the woods a couple of days later without them. After using so many cameras with dip switch controls I actually prefer them but I know that there are those who prefer and LCD screen.

As with the other Sony camera set-ups, the camera needs to be set on certain settings for optimal operation. The Trail Watcher comes with the settings already set but you might have to crack open the Sony owners manual if you need to change something. Since I now have three Sony cameras in my digital game cameras this has become easy for me.

A rope ratchet is included to attach the unit to a tree. A Python Cable Lock is not provided but can be used and I’ve purchased one to lock mine. Trail Watcher sells two models of cameras. One model is designed to be locked to a tree using a Python Cable and the other isn’t. Mine is the one designed not to be locked but it still is possible. The non-lockable is smaller (4 ½ x 6 inches) and is the smallest digital game camera that I have. This model is called the micro series.

This Trail Watcher has an external switch to operate the motion detector. You can turn off the motion detector while setting up or taking the camera down. This isn’t a huge thing with a large memory card but is an added plus.

Similar to each of the other digital game cameras I’ve purchased a 512 MB memory card to store the pictures. There is 32 MB of internal memory if you forget your memory card or don’t have one.

I’m operating the camera on the 6M and 3M settings right now to experiment with the night pictures. You can blow these pictures up and see more than you want to.

The Sony 6.0 camera has a 2.0 inch LCD screen for viewing pictures in the field. This is the biggest LCD screen we have on any of our cams. After viewing pictures on this screen it makes the others look small. There is also a USB cable to download the pictures to your computer.

One problem with the Sony S600 is that it does not put the time and date on the picture. The time and date is with the file so you can see them once you download the pictures but not on the pictures themselves. I like the time and date right on the picture.

There are five time delays ranging from 10 seconds to 30 minutes. This isn’t the largest array of time delays offered in a game camera but is adequate.

The Sony digital camera can easily be removed from the unit and used as a personal camera and it also has the capability of taking short video clips.

Trail Watcher is currently offering a new model. Click here to read our review of the Trail Watcher 2035.

The picture above is a picture of the Trail Watcher 2060 and the picture below is one of the many pictures taken with this digital trail camera.

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