12 Mega Pixel Infra Red Digital Scouting and Wildlife Camera Trap

Well worth the money spent.
This product was purchased following a review on the CJ Birdfoods web site by their CEO.
Our garden has an abundance of wildlife in addition to a wide variety of birds and we wanted to identify what was using the garden as a feeding area and through-route.
This camera [5210A with extra battery box] proved to be ideal, although for night recordings you do need to be careful and not have it too close to the ground as the UV flash reflects back into the camera and 'wipes out' any image. The daylight recordings were very good and have resulted in some interesting close-ups of animals and birds not normally able to be photographed unless you have a 'good camera' and patience to wait for the ideal shot.
If you are interested on capturing what happens in your garden then this is an ideal product.

This was purchased a few months ago and has been well used since delivery from Garden Secrets (via Amazon). The Camera arrived quickly and was well packaged.
Having kept on 'putting off' the purchase of a 'trap camera' for many years I now wish I hadn't !

This camera has so far taken in excess of 10,000 photos.......I've used it for time-lapse a lot!. This feature isn't on most trap camera's and works really well on the little acorn. The interval of the time lapse is user defined - even down to every few seconds .

Trip Mode:

It's quite fast, probably between 1 & 1.5 seconds. - The reason why it is faster than most stealth cameras is because it has side sensors which prime the camera - however this can be switched off if they arn't needed.
I have it set to take 3 pictures every trip and have the next trip set to 0 secs after the last photo is taken. there is a lag between the last of the pictures being taken and the next time it will trip though, regardless of this setting - the lag is possibly around 5 to 10 secs though I' haven't accurately measured this.

Video Mode:

I don't use this much, daytime quaility is ok but don't expect too much.

Picture quality:

I believe this camera's sensor is rated as 5mp yet the camera's software interpolates this to 12mp.- imo no point in setting the quality above 5mp.
Daytime; The picture is reasonably sharp , colours not very vivid in cloudy conditions yet still acceptable and nothing a bit of editing can't sort out. Overall I'm happy with the quality of daytime photos from the little acorn, if not a tiny bit impressed.
Night-time; Maybe a little disappointed with the overall quality. Yet animals and birds are still identifiable and the infra red illuminates a sort of 30' diameter circle, the centre of which is brightst and it gradually fades towards the edge.

Other Points
* Infra-red illumination is visible to the naked eye , but only faintly. In use I've found it to be un-noticable when set to take just photo's - its when taking a video the IR stays on and is slightly noticable.....yet its only a dull dark red glow and if I didn't know where the camera was I doubt I'd notice it.
* Batteries - using duracell 2450ma rechargables , they don't seem to be affected by the cold and last for around 2000+ photos
* Case - fiddley and strangely designed... but its ok... seems durable and all the moving parts fit well and provides a waterproof seal.
* Menu - just remember to click 'ok' after you've selected your choice! otherwise straightforward, instructions not read or needed.
* Fixing to a tree ( or similar) This is where the case's design is good! - I use dark green plastic coated garden wire ( although a strap is included) and fixing takes hardly any more than a minute or 2, and because of the cases rounded rear it can be fixed to point at any angle away from the tree.

* Make sure for night-time the camera is not too close to the ground as the infrared pictures will be bleached and there is just white on the photo.

What the smallest thing that trips the camera? Mice trip it, so do birds. I was suprised, I've got a lot of photos of voles/shrews etc now!!

Summary:

UK stealth cameras seem to cost double or treble what they do in the US - with this in mind the little acorn is good value in the uk. It does do what it says, the results are pleasing & often exciting and it has the bonus of a time-lapse feature . Recommended

Update 9th March:

A strange little glitch has developed since I wrote the above.... my settings are sometimes 'reset' by the camera.... what happens, the switch has 3 settings, off - on - test... using test to set up the camera I would, say ,set it to take photo only and 3 pics per trip... I would then switch it to off , and when setting up the camera outside switch it to 'on' and leave. when I've retrieved the camera a few days later I find it's somehow reverted to its own setting.... sometimes camera+video sometimes just 1 photo per trip and most oddly sometimes, time-lapse.
Since this happened a couple of times I have tested it thoroughly and cannot get it to do the above... in other words it keeps my 'user-defined' setting intact.
I'll see what the next few weeks brings.

I failed to mention the screen on the rear of the unit in my review... This is a helpful feature when setting up the camera as its suprisingly hard to tell where the camera is pointing when its up on a tree... all it takes is while the camera is in test mode press the button and a photo is taken, playback the picture on the screen - have you just taken a picture of the sky?

The camera also has a useful tripod mount.

I purchased the 12MP IR Dig scout cam (Acorn Ltl-5210A) based on 8 previous reviews all giving 5 star.

In urgent need of proving what was taking the poultry, we allowed for the lower hinge coming loose within 10mins of unpacking. Also please remember this does NOT come complete with an SD Card, so with no internal memory you will need to purchase one before use (I would recommend 4GB min). The strap for fixing to trees/posts etc is v basic, non-stretchy with small plastic 'pull-through' tightener. The camera body, overall, is quite light-weight plastic and doesn't feel sturdy. The opening/unlocking latch to access the battery compartment and on/off switch is especially miniscule (1mm x 7mm), which is a shame as you will need to access this every use.

Accessing the controls, on, off and test buttons is not possible once fully set up in position (unless you lay on your back with a magnifying glass) so be prepared for lots of pics of yourself! There is a good range of advanced settings; interval, sensitivity, frequency,etc for photos, video or both and the time stamp option also displays temperature and even moon phase. Daytime picture quality is very good indeed and we have reduced from 12MP to 5MP to save on memory.

However even on the highest sensitivity settings with the shortest interval the 1 second shutter speed is slow enough to miss some animals, especially birds. I also wrongly assumed the 3photo setting would take 3 photos in rapid succession, but in fact theres approx 4 second delay between each photo. Automatically changing to 'night vision' the range is VASTLY decreased. We're at about 3.5-4 metres, struggling to see and having to enhance the grainy black and white photos using photo editing software.

The maker claims the batteries will last up to 3 months using 4x AAA batteries (or 6 months using the additional battery box totalling 8 batteries). I assume this would be on the least sensitive settings possible as our first set of batteries are getting low after just a week.

Sadly, the one night we had a 'visitor' the camera didn't work... no photos were taken between 0145hrs and 0815hrs, yet there was clear evidence of activity. We can only assume that even with the shortest interval setting, raindrops on the sensors prevented any pictures from being taken.

Overall, a good camera for having a bit of fun. Not especially well made or thought out, but saved by the price, impressive quality daytime pictures, advanced settings and wide PIR range. However the slow response times means alot of missed opportunities and blank irrelevant photos.

UPDATE: another night with no photos of our intruder! if you want to photo anything smaller than a sheep at night you need an additional light source, video or time lapse setting and have the camera very very close. We set it up to take 3 photos then video, but again be warned; that 4 second delay between each is a long time in the animal world.

UPDATE 2: yet another night of missed photos; so I can say it prob won't work in mist or fog either, even at close range.

3rd & FINAL UPDATE: SUCCESS! For night pics in rural location with no ambient light sources such as house or street lighting: completely forget the side sensors, (in my opinion they're a waste of time). Set the camera low down and pointing in the direction that the target animal will APPROACH, (if you don't know then its trial and error I'm afraid.) We have now noticed that in many pics the target is cautiously staring directly at the camera and appears to be fully aware of the camera's presence. It seems that previously it had hung around just out of view but triggering the side sensors, hence blank photos, then darted quickly past. You may still need to leave something to draw it in close or keep it hanging around long enough for the camera to kick into gear, but once achieved the pictures are pretty good.

Finally, if you go to your camera and find that its not taking any pics at all, you may need to format the SD card (See menu). We test ours each time before use now.