Day 6 Plotwatcher Time Lapse Video Camera

First, I have to admit that I'm not using this gadget for its intended purpose. I'm using it to shoot time-lapse videos (so far I've recorded the construction of a shed, a wedding reception, and birds on a feeder) and it works well for that. The quality of the images is fair -- not high-resolution by any means, but acceptable. The setup (particularly if you want to deviate from the device's presets) is kludgey and requires a Windows computer, but it does work. There's no viewfinder so you have to guess where the thing is pointed. All that said, the Plotwatcher is a fine tool for creating time-lapse videos on a budget. And here's a tip: the movies that come from the Plotwatcher are in a proprietary format (with the suffix .TLV) but you can just change the suffix to .AVI and play them as Quicktime movies.

I hunt with a tree stand on management areas, so i am constantly searching for new spots. The Plotwatcher is like you are hunting two spots at once. I scout at lunch and put the plotwatcher on a prospective spot and hunt another spot that evening and the next morning. At noon I check the plotwatcher and see whats moving and decide if that spot is good to hunt.***UPDATE 7/2015*** Still working like a charm. Uses lots of batteries but the pictures are good. I am buying a PRO because the batteries last much longer and the SD card is easier than the micro USB so I can scout two places while hunting. Last years Buck using Plotwatcher.

Good as a basic time lapse camera. I am using it to record a home building project and it is working fairly well. Several times the unit stopped working inexplicably and so I lost several days of recording. I think this was probably related to batteries. Lithium batteries do better in cold weather but are more expensive. Since I have switched, it has more reliably given me 7 days of recording. I wish the settings were a little more flexible. It is designed as a hunting camera so allowing a mid day gap is useful for that but for me it would have been more useful to skip the hour closest to dusk and dawn. It's not expensive and having a time lapse record of my house going up is cool so I would recommend the camera.

Simple enough to use and it did ok for the purpose it was intended for, but for some reasons the USB's would work a few times in it and then write protect themselves, became useless. I can't be 100% sure it was the camera's fault but have no other explanation. I was dealing with that by replacing the flash drives, but that got expensive. The camera stopped working all together withing about eight months. I did not buy another and would not, switched to Bushnell field cams and bought several since the first.

This is a great idea. Pictures on a somewhat programmable time line. Really good definition for the price.I've gotten some great shots of both wildlife and service people coming to my house. That being said, this is also an excellent/cheap surveillance system. The battery life is so-so when used all day without the mid-day skip feature on, certainly a real plus for deer monitoring, counter productive for watching the house.Had it not died prematurely, this would garner an easy 4 stars, maybe 5. Mine lasted only 18 months, and MOST of that time was spent on a shelf not being used at all (with batteries removed of course). It has a one year warranty so I'm SOL.Pity, this really should have been a great review. 2 Stars because it works well - if it works.

So this has performed really well for me, and I like the ease of use. Software is easy to use, setup took only a few minutes. I am disappointed for the price that I had to go buy a usb drive. I've bought another camera that performs as well and it came with it's own sd card. The detail when zoom in on an area gets really grainy but it gives you good general idea of whats going on in a certain area.

After going through a few game cameras, I wised up to the fact that I hate C & D batteries and I don't need IR capacity. I ordered my first Plotwatcher in 2011 after a few months of use I bought three more. All of these are still being used. I have one mounted in a security box and the rest are just bungeed to trees, I leave them out 24-7 365 days a year. They survived a number of crazy wind storms which tore through my place destroying 24 mature trees (snapped in half), as well as extreme weather from multiple feet of snow to extraordinarily freezing weather and rain. All of them are still going strong. My one problem has been with the USB Flash Drives. The first lot of flash drives lasted about a year, and then started to lock up and I was unable to reformat them properly to get them to work again. I replaced them with some free ones I picked up at some trade show and they are still working well.Over all these things are awesome and the only time one of them let me down was because of operator error.... The interface is simple and easy to set up, the software is actually the best I have seen in comparison to other similar cameras and the multiple fixed options for number of pics, time between pics and duration of mid-day rest options is excellent and only made better by the ability to customize your own settings.I am impressed with the ability to zoom in while reviewing the footage, and have caught a massive range of tiny critters to nice sized black bears and deer. I use 4 rechargeable AA batteries in each camera and rotate the batteries every weekend. Depending on your settings you can extend the battery life to capture more than six days, but usually record as much as possible across a six day timespan. Would be super cool to be able to run 12v on this (and there is a guy who is aftermarket modifying these for that), but honestly this is the best thing on the market for my application.One sad note is that I paid $89 for these in 2011, so the price has certainly jumped time...

If you are able to replace recharged battery every 4-5 days this will catch things you would never see. Set along field edge and find the old bucks trail without getting to close. Have spotted deer out past 100yrds