Hunters here?

Kodak makes an easyshare line , mine's an M530 . Pocket size 12 Megapixel , pretty decent zoom , and includes a rechargable and replaceable battery . Has several modes , including digital video and uses SD cards for memory . Interfaces easily with your comp via USB or you can remove the card to read it . I think this one was around $200 . Oh , and it's autofocus/exposure .

For pictures of wild animals you probably want a telephoto lens. You might consider a SLR film camera. You will not be shooting lots of pictures of animals, compared to the number of pictures of people and scenic pictures. So the cost of the film would not be too bad.

Dan

I'm pretty sure that critters are not scared off by an unattended trail camera cabled and locked to a tree.

Mea Culpa. I was thinking of a camera to take with one when hiking. As opposed to a camera to take pictures at home.

Dan

I have been using a Moultrie that I got from Cabellas. It is a 5mpixel camera with an SD card slot. It has IR flash and runs on D Cells for months. I bring the camera in the house and download it through the USB port. It has a little keyfob transmitter if you want to trigger it manually or the IR motion detector.

It works pretty well. Images are not SLR quality, but with no person around to scare the critters, you get some serious closeups.

The camera is chinese made, but it works OK.

The model I got is a Cabellas special, and I emailed Moultrie about getting the keyfob trigger stuff and they responded with exactly what I was asking about. I would deal with them again.

BobH

Like other digital stuff, these change very fast. What you want is a weather-tight box that has decent attaching points and can be locked, if needed. Just had to retrofit the b-in-l's camera with a metal plate because the attachment point was on the lid of the box, not the back. Meant that every time we wanted to access the SD card, we had to dismantle the setup, then get it all back together again and repoint the camera.

What these have been is a microcontroller connected to a cheap webcam with some kind of storage card slot and an IR movement detector. As they've been developed, they've gone from B&W to color and with an IR LED flash array. Some can do limited video. As webcams have improved, so have the game cameras. None I've seen are even close to the same quality as even the cheapest pocket digicam, so don't get your hopes up of getting a wall-sized portrait of Bambi from a game camera. What they are good for is determining what's walking through the area and when. If no deer, then don't hunt there. Most any of them will do that.

Extras to look for: External battery connection for extended use SDHC card slot for extended memory storage, there must be a ton of SD interface chips in some Asian warehouse that still keep getting stuck in things. Thumbs down on SD-only. Laser for aiming Uses regular D cells, not funky special batteries or battery packs Maybe video clips IR flash A strap or harness long enough to go around the biggest tree you might want to use, additional rings, loops or hangers are quite welcome. The b-in-l uses a T-bar stake with a chunk of plywood bolted to the top and a hook to hang the thing from. Works well in the swamp. A real lens, not a pinhole camera

I really can't recommend any particular brand, they've all got shortcomings. Now is the time to get one, though, a lot of the web operators are getting rid of older stock for cheap.

I use a small EEE netbook with a SSD to go get the pictures off the cameras, very handy. No hard drive to worry about when rattling around on the 4-wheeler.

Stan

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Except that film is becoming progressively less available.

But (assuming you have the money to spare) a good zoom lens with VR (Vibration Reduction) or IS (Image Stabilization) (two manufacturers' names for the same thing) on a DSLR will give you better chances of a good shot than film will. Among other things, "auto ISO", which allows the camera to boost the ISO (sensitivity -- used to be called ASA) to allow a reasonable shutter speed to minimize motion blur, and a telephoto magnifys motion blur, unless you have the VR/IS option and turn it on. That option adds a lot to the cost of a lens, FWIW, which is why I *don't* have it.

My (now obsolete) Nikon D70 has an ISO range from 200 to 1600.

200 is about half of what Tri-X gave by default (it could be pushed, at an increase in grain size). Color films really did not play in that range, except one high-speed Ektachrome, which was 160 ASA IIRC, and which could not be pushed that much. :-)

The two main contenders in serious DSLRs are Nikon and Cannon. My choice of Nikon was because of already owned lenses for older cameras, but otherwise they are mostly about the same -- give or take a few specialized features. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

What's "film"? ;-)

I used to have a whole darkroom with Beseler 45 MCRX enlarger and a set of Zeiss lenses. It was a lot of fun.

Film is film, but on arrival of the 5 mp digital camera, the world changed.

Steve