What's the difference between a trail-cam and a camera trap?
Opinions may differ on this subject but we use the term trail-cam to refer to the small off the shelf, self-contained cameras that you will be familiar with made by the likes of Browning, Spypoint , Bushnell and a host of other names. These tend to have a built in PIR (passive infra-red) sensor to detect animals and take photos or video. There are dozens of models and brands to choose from and they vary greatly in quality and functionality.
A camera trap tends to be a more sophisticated system allowing the user to have much more control over the image. They hail from the broadcast industry where they’ve been used for many years to capture wonderful wildlife sequences. Traditionally these have been bulky, expensive and complicated units.
With the launch of our Cambush Cube we’ve combined the high quality image demanded by broadcasters such as Netflix, Apple TV and the BBC, and built it into a compact, lightweight, remotely triggered and easy to rig and operate system. The Cube weighs just 900g including the battery, and works with our radio-linked Beam Break and remote PIR trigger system. The batteries are flight-safe (38Wh each), will run a Cube for up to a year on standby and allow almost 10 hours of 4K recording. Features include the ability to set triggering windows, and set the duration of recordings from 10 secs up to 12 minutes with a PIR override which will extend the recording if animal activity continues. An external mic socket gives you amazing sound – not an option with most trail-cams.
Why use remote triggers? Trail-cams with a built-in PIR sensor work by detecting movement of irradiated heat directly in front of the camera. This is fine for snapping a couple of stills shots but for video this limits your options as the animal is already in the frame when recording starts. By using a remote trigger set well away from the camera, you can ensure the camera is recording before the animal enters frame. Our triggers are wireless and work on a 2.4GHz radio signal (for worldwide licence-free compliance). No annoying cables to be tangled up and chewed through. The Cambush system also allows multiple triggers to work with one camera – or indeed multiple triggers working with multiple cameras. How does this work in practice?
Imagine a clearing in a wood, with an obvious trail passing through it. By placing a beam break trigger at either end of the trail you can be sure anything travelling in either direction on that trail will trigger the camera. With more cameras you could set up even more shots from the same location at the same time. When one trigger is tripped, ALL your cameras will roll. How about a topshot from the trees above? Close up of paws? Wide establisher? Head-on shot along the trail? The Cube is so small you can even dig it into the trail and film animals walking over the top of it! You get far more bang for your buck with a multi-trigger, multi-camera system.
