Customer Review of the Moultrie M80XD Scounting Camera
Setup The directions were easy to follow. With just a little patience, you can be up and going in no time. Because of the size of cameras today, I removed the camera from the tree when I changed out the SD card. It was much easier to see standing up then kneeling. A Gator strap is provided for securing to the tree, I liked this more than a bungee.
Picture Quality. When I had the camera set for Trail cam, the quality of the pictures were very good. The daytime pictures were surprisingly good, as you can see. There is a choice for quality for the pictures as well as the video. The “flash”, infrared lit up the woods at least 50 foot. The video at night was good also. There is a selection for night flash where it speeds up the shutter speed to help with washout when the animal moves. A nice feature. The daytime video was very good. When the animal was close, the better the video. Generally the same for day/night video.
As far as “Ghost Pictures”, about 20% of the videos were trips with nothing there. I did have the camera set low to get pics of the turkeys. It could have been the leaves moving. The audio feature was great. It got the turkeys “talking”, and can hear them walking through the leaves.
I did try the Hybrid mode. It worked good, but I wanted pictures and video. On this setting it went to Plot mode that didn`t work for the turkeys. I think for some the Hybrid and Plot features will be useful. Especially for those who have food plots they are monitoring.
Battery Life. I put in Duracell AA alkaline batteries. During my test period of about 3 weeks. I had 80% of life left. The camera will tell you how many days or percentage of battery left.
Price. For me, the price of the camera is the number one factor when selecting a trail cam. My cameras are on public land, where you have to worry about more than bears to destroy or steal your trail cam. I have mine in Bear Boxes, which I screw to the tree, then run a cable around the tree with a good quality lock. This camera has a place for a thin shanked lock. This may be good for some but not for me. When jumping up into the $150.00 range you definitely get better quality that needs to be secured.
Overall. I think Moultrie has a great little camera with a lot of features. For the price range I was very happy with the results from this camera. Native offers a bear box, and for those worried about thieves I recommend going the extra to protect your investment. <END>
Updated 2/1/2012: Rec’d the latest version of the Moultrie M80XD. Looks to have a wide range of upgrades this year including Fast Fire, Longer Battery Life, an Updated Plot Stalker Time Lapse and Motion Freeze. Here are a few shop photos:
http://www.nativeoutdoors.com/gamecameraphotos/moultrie-m80xd/
Updated 2/12/2012: We spent sometime testing this M80XD (XT) and like last years camera, the trigger speed is a bit slow (about 2 sec), the setup on this game camera is a breeze, non standard thread in the insert and decent day (not as crisp) and night time pictures (very bright night IR flash).
Updated 2/16/2012: Still working with the Motion Freeze but from what we can tell it does make a big difference.
The following are for the 2011 Moultrie M80 – Comments 6/3: After almost 3000 pictures we have a pretty good feel for this little Moultrie M80 game camera. The M80 has many great features including picture quality, especially at night, battery life and setup was is a breeze. On the negative side… the sensor misses a lot. Compared to other game cameras, the Moultrie M80 camera was near the bottom capturing and saving only about 1 of 3 possible pictures.
Comments 6/26 : Dead at 3300 pictures in 3 months… Not really what we expected since Moultrie is advertising 1 year battery life. The Moultrie M80 game camera captured very few events and even very fewer night time IR photos. This latest results will drop this camera in the ranking.
See the Pictures of the Moultrie M80
All cameras are placed in their respective “class” based on price. This way, we are not comparing a $100 game camera with a $300 one. We took the most common features and compared them to other game cameras in its same class, then we ranked the scouting cameras based on best value or ‘best in class’ for each price range.
Results: Class $100 $150 $200 $250 $300 (to see full results, click on results link)
