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Product Description
The Archer’s Choice Scouting Camera is a combination Stealth Cam’s technology with Ralph and Vicki’s in-field experience resulting in one of the best products available for hunters. The Archer’s Choice Scouting Camera is a compact camera that is easy to conceal in the woods and features a 640x480 digital video with audio (10-180 seconds). It has an 8.0 mega-pixel still image that offers clean, crisp pictures. The fast, one second trigger speed is sure to capture game on the move. The 38 IR (infrared) emitters, with a range of 50+ feet, provide excellent quality pictures of your game at night or during low light times of the day. For extended time in the field, the Archer’s Choice Scouting Camera is capable of taking up to 10,000 photos on a single set of batteries. The time/date/moon stamp on video files gives the hunter access to important facts that they need to know when preparing for a hunt. The Archer’s Choice Scouting Camera has a Time Lapse Mode incorporated that allows the user to view a day’s activity (or time period of activity) in a condensed time frame. The burst mode on the Archer’s Choice offers one to nine images per triggering for the most full, accurate view of the game as possible. “For years we have trusted our Stealth Cams to help us bag everything from Midwest whitetails to Canadian bruins,” states Ralph Cianciarulo, “we are now excited to introduce our first ever Archer’s Choice Scouting Camera. Loaded with features, this baby’s gonna change the way we play the game!” Other great features of the Archer’s Choice Scouting Camera include a compact housing 6”x4”x3”, icon based programming and one to 60 second / one to 60 minute time out setting. The “Posse” mode-quick preset offers two picture burst / one minute time out setting. The Archer’s Choice Scouting Camera comes with a 12v auxiliary power jack, mounting strap, and a bonus Severe Whitetail Disorder 3 DVD (a $15.99 value). The Archer’s Choice operates on eight “AA” cell batteries.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Note: see updates at the end.
Note 2: be sure to read last update.
I specifically bought this camera because of the time lapse feature. Since that is really the only mode I use, I will limit my review to that.
The IR picture quality even at the lowest resolution is outstanding. No complaints at all about that.
Now on to the time lapse. If you pan to use this mode and take a lot of pictures, you really need to use an external battery. It will take about 6000 pictures before the AAs die.
I wanted to take a picture every 5 seconds. There is even an example in the manual for this. However I found that if you set it for 5 seconds, the actual time between pictures is 10 seconds. So I then tried reducing the timeout. So a 4 second timeout would result in pictures every 9 seconds. However the lowest I could go was 2 seconds which resulted in a picture every 7 seconds. Any setting lower than 2 seconds still resulted in 7 seconds between pictures. I thought it might have something to do with the time it takes to write the picture to the SD card (more on that later), but I found that even if I did a 2 shot burst, I had the same results. So for example with a 2 second burst, the first picture gets taken at time 0, then the second (the burst) 3 seconds later, and then the next one is 7 seconds after that. So it obviously can write the pictures fast enough since it writes the burst after 3 seconds fine.
So I set the camera for 2 shot bursts with a 2 second delay. This ended up getting me close to the every 5 seconds I wanted. It would do a picture at 1, 3, 10, 13, 20 etc. seconds. This resulted in about 7,000 pictures each night. Using a fast slide show or other software will let you scan through the whole thing pretty quickly. I would then delete all of the pictures for the next night. This all worked perfect for about 5 days. Then one morning I saw there were only about 800 pictures on the camera. the camera was also locked up. I could not turn it off or on without removing the batteries. When I put the batteries back in, it came back to life, but the clock time was at the time it had locked up.
I figured it was just a fluke and reset everything and tried again the next night. I had the same problem. After about 2 hours the camera locked up. I took it back to Academy where I bought it and they promptly exchanged it. I tested the 5 second timeout again with the same results above. So I called tech support to ask about that and to mention the lockups.
Tech support was very friendly. However, they immediately wanted to blame the SD card, saying they don't support 'high speed' cards. The manual does state this and they even list some brands that are supported. In my case I was using a SanDisk card that was listed as being supported. However, tech support said that ANY card that has a number in a circle (i.e. class 2 or 4 etc) will NOT work (which mine did). I asked why it worked fine for 5 days, but they insisted that the camera WILL lock up if you don't use the right card. Well that is all well and good, but have you ever tried to find a 'slow' high capacity SD card? As a side note, a class 2 card is the slowest you can get over 2GB. Everything is high speed these days. They had no explanation for the 5 second timeout not working properly, but said they made a note of it.
So I am going to try the same card that was working fine again, and if the lockups start again, I will try and find one of those other cards and see what happens.
So other than these two issues (and it may indeed be card related), I highly recommend this camera, especially because it has the time lapse feature. It's amazing what you can catch that the PIR is either too slow for, or the critter is too small to detect.
<edit 9/23/11>
The replacement camera had the same problem locking up with the card I was using even when I lowered the burts to just one picture and extended the time delay between pictures. So I purchased 2 SanDisk 4GB cards that were on the 'approved' list. At first they worked fine, but after a couple of days, the camera started locking up again. I will call tech support again, but there is something wrong with the time lapse feature of this camera. Note: I had also eliminated temperature as a cause (it's been hot here) by bringing the camera inside until evening. I still ended up with a lockup within 2 hours.
<follow up>
I called tech support again and talked to them as if it was my first call. I explained the problem and asked if they had any other reports of this issue. They said no. When I asked them how that can be when I called about the same problem a week ago, they had nothing to say. So either they are not logging the problems, or this may be a known issue that they are just not admitting to. Since I had already exchanged the camera once and am using different SD cards, they had no other solutions or suggestions other than not use the time lapse.
So given this continuing problem with two different cameras and different memory cards, I would no longer rate this a 5. Overall, I might still give it a 3 or 4, but if the sole purpose is to use the time lapse feature, I would have to give it a 1 as it is totally unreliable for that.
<update 9/26/11>
Well, I had exchanged the camera yet again and the third one does the exact same thing. Even on the very first night. I have never been able to get one to work for more than 3 days straight. I have tried multiple SD cards and they all have the same problem. Even the same card may work one night and then not the next.
Although the tech support people are friendly, I have been less than impressed with their willingness to solve this problem. BTW, they never replied to any of my 5 e-mails. All they want to do is blame it on the memory card, even when I tell them I am using a brand new one from their 'approved' list (among others from the list). So as good as the pictures are, the camera is useless if it doesn't work reliably.
I have returned the third camera and will now look into another brand.
<update 10/15/11>
After finally getting in touch with someone via e-mail at stealthcam, it was suggested that I try to use the firmware update available on the web site. I had avoided doing that previously because tech support had recommended not to do it and also because the update is supposed to lower the lowest resolution (1 star) so that you can fit more pictures on the card. But I was not interested in lower resolution pictures.
After verifying that the 4th camera had the same problem, I did the update. The first thing I noticed was that it did NOT change the resolution of the 1 star pictures. My e-mail contact had no explanation for that and was going to look into it. However, there were now a new default setting for the time lapse. It now defaulted to 30 seconds vice 5 minutes. Anyway, I set it for 5 seconds again (it still actually takes pictures every 10 seconds), but it has worked perfectly for over a week now. It has taken 3270 pictures every single night without a problem.
So it appears that the firmware update does fix the time-lapse issue (even if it's not advertised to). I don't know why it did not change the lowest resolution, but I'm actually glad it didn't. So once again, I can rate this as 5 stars despite the problems I had.
Note 2: be sure to read last update.
I specifically bought this camera because of the time lapse feature. Since that is really the only mode I use, I will limit my review to that.
The IR picture quality even at the lowest resolution is outstanding. No complaints at all about that.
Now on to the time lapse. If you pan to use this mode and take a lot of pictures, you really need to use an external battery. It will take about 6000 pictures before the AAs die.
I wanted to take a picture every 5 seconds. There is even an example in the manual for this. However I found that if you set it for 5 seconds, the actual time between pictures is 10 seconds. So I then tried reducing the timeout. So a 4 second timeout would result in pictures every 9 seconds. However the lowest I could go was 2 seconds which resulted in a picture every 7 seconds. Any setting lower than 2 seconds still resulted in 7 seconds between pictures. I thought it might have something to do with the time it takes to write the picture to the SD card (more on that later), but I found that even if I did a 2 shot burst, I had the same results. So for example with a 2 second burst, the first picture gets taken at time 0, then the second (the burst) 3 seconds later, and then the next one is 7 seconds after that. So it obviously can write the pictures fast enough since it writes the burst after 3 seconds fine.
So I set the camera for 2 shot bursts with a 2 second delay. This ended up getting me close to the every 5 seconds I wanted. It would do a picture at 1, 3, 10, 13, 20 etc. seconds. This resulted in about 7,000 pictures each night. Using a fast slide show or other software will let you scan through the whole thing pretty quickly. I would then delete all of the pictures for the next night. This all worked perfect for about 5 days. Then one morning I saw there were only about 800 pictures on the camera. the camera was also locked up. I could not turn it off or on without removing the batteries. When I put the batteries back in, it came back to life, but the clock time was at the time it had locked up.
I figured it was just a fluke and reset everything and tried again the next night. I had the same problem. After about 2 hours the camera locked up. I took it back to Academy where I bought it and they promptly exchanged it. I tested the 5 second timeout again with the same results above. So I called tech support to ask about that and to mention the lockups.
Tech support was very friendly. However, they immediately wanted to blame the SD card, saying they don't support 'high speed' cards. The manual does state this and they even list some brands that are supported. In my case I was using a SanDisk card that was listed as being supported. However, tech support said that ANY card that has a number in a circle (i.e. class 2 or 4 etc) will NOT work (which mine did). I asked why it worked fine for 5 days, but they insisted that the camera WILL lock up if you don't use the right card. Well that is all well and good, but have you ever tried to find a 'slow' high capacity SD card? As a side note, a class 2 card is the slowest you can get over 2GB. Everything is high speed these days. They had no explanation for the 5 second timeout not working properly, but said they made a note of it.
So I am going to try the same card that was working fine again, and if the lockups start again, I will try and find one of those other cards and see what happens.
So other than these two issues (and it may indeed be card related), I highly recommend this camera, especially because it has the time lapse feature. It's amazing what you can catch that the PIR is either too slow for, or the critter is too small to detect.
<edit 9/23/11>
The replacement camera had the same problem locking up with the card I was using even when I lowered the burts to just one picture and extended the time delay between pictures. So I purchased 2 SanDisk 4GB cards that were on the 'approved' list. At first they worked fine, but after a couple of days, the camera started locking up again. I will call tech support again, but there is something wrong with the time lapse feature of this camera. Note: I had also eliminated temperature as a cause (it's been hot here) by bringing the camera inside until evening. I still ended up with a lockup within 2 hours.
<follow up>
I called tech support again and talked to them as if it was my first call. I explained the problem and asked if they had any other reports of this issue. They said no. When I asked them how that can be when I called about the same problem a week ago, they had nothing to say. So either they are not logging the problems, or this may be a known issue that they are just not admitting to. Since I had already exchanged the camera once and am using different SD cards, they had no other solutions or suggestions other than not use the time lapse.
So given this continuing problem with two different cameras and different memory cards, I would no longer rate this a 5. Overall, I might still give it a 3 or 4, but if the sole purpose is to use the time lapse feature, I would have to give it a 1 as it is totally unreliable for that.
<update 9/26/11>
Well, I had exchanged the camera yet again and the third one does the exact same thing. Even on the very first night. I have never been able to get one to work for more than 3 days straight. I have tried multiple SD cards and they all have the same problem. Even the same card may work one night and then not the next.
Although the tech support people are friendly, I have been less than impressed with their willingness to solve this problem. BTW, they never replied to any of my 5 e-mails. All they want to do is blame it on the memory card, even when I tell them I am using a brand new one from their 'approved' list (among others from the list). So as good as the pictures are, the camera is useless if it doesn't work reliably.
I have returned the third camera and will now look into another brand.
<update 10/15/11>
After finally getting in touch with someone via e-mail at stealthcam, it was suggested that I try to use the firmware update available on the web site. I had avoided doing that previously because tech support had recommended not to do it and also because the update is supposed to lower the lowest resolution (1 star) so that you can fit more pictures on the card. But I was not interested in lower resolution pictures.
After verifying that the 4th camera had the same problem, I did the update. The first thing I noticed was that it did NOT change the resolution of the 1 star pictures. My e-mail contact had no explanation for that and was going to look into it. However, there were now a new default setting for the time lapse. It now defaulted to 30 seconds vice 5 minutes. Anyway, I set it for 5 seconds again (it still actually takes pictures every 10 seconds), but it has worked perfectly for over a week now. It has taken 3270 pictures every single night without a problem.
So it appears that the firmware update does fix the time-lapse issue (even if it's not advertised to). I don't know why it did not change the lowest resolution, but I'm actually glad it didn't. So once again, I can rate this as 5 stars despite the problems I had.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I own five cameras and this one does not compare to the others. For the money (it was the most expensive), it's not very good.
The camera does not take night-time photos or videos at all. Also, the camera is triggered by anything that moves, like grass and leaves, resulting in a full 8 GB SD card with NO animals, not one, on the videos. For comparison, I have other cameras pointing in the same direction in the same spot with totally good results, capturing deer, coyotes and other critters.
I cannot comment on the battery life since, instead of using disposables, I have it hooked to a 12 volt car battery with a solar charger.
A much better choice is the Truth Cam 46. As an added benefit, the Truth Cam is cheaper.
Update 11/25/2011:
The unit is worse than originally described above and deserves at most 1 star.
I am still using this unit side by side of my other trail cams: The Truth Cam 46 and the Wildview (cheapo camera). So far I have NEVER, NOT ONCE got a good photo or video of a deer or other animal with this crummy device. I only get photos of the grass and trees, even though deer and coyotes are parading back and forth in front of it. Right beside it, the Truth Cam has provided literally HUNDREDS of fantastic photos and videos of deer and other wildlife.
I can't express how disappointed I am with this unit, especially after paying so much more than I did for the Wildview and Truth Cam units (both which perform orders of magnitude better).
Look for this dog on eBay soon...
The camera does not take night-time photos or videos at all. Also, the camera is triggered by anything that moves, like grass and leaves, resulting in a full 8 GB SD card with NO animals, not one, on the videos. For comparison, I have other cameras pointing in the same direction in the same spot with totally good results, capturing deer, coyotes and other critters.
I cannot comment on the battery life since, instead of using disposables, I have it hooked to a 12 volt car battery with a solar charger.
A much better choice is the Truth Cam 46. As an added benefit, the Truth Cam is cheaper.
Update 11/25/2011:
The unit is worse than originally described above and deserves at most 1 star.
I am still using this unit side by side of my other trail cams: The Truth Cam 46 and the Wildview (cheapo camera). So far I have NEVER, NOT ONCE got a good photo or video of a deer or other animal with this crummy device. I only get photos of the grass and trees, even though deer and coyotes are parading back and forth in front of it. Right beside it, the Truth Cam has provided literally HUNDREDS of fantastic photos and videos of deer and other wildlife.
I can't express how disappointed I am with this unit, especially after paying so much more than I did for the Wildview and Truth Cam units (both which perform orders of magnitude better).
Look for this dog on eBay soon...
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
Received camera and used camera in still picture and sometimes in video mode. Having trouble with an animal killing my chickens. Takes good pictures either still or video mode. Video mode has audio, which is nice. No white out pictures. Need the 16 gig sd card for video/still pictures and the 12volt external battery. Good buy for the money spent on the camera. Recommend placing camera at knee to hip height for small animals. Also, have 16 gig available space on your computer for downloadng video/still pictures.
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