Best Trail Cameras

What to Look For In a Trail Camera

Whether you’ve purchased a trail camera before or not, it can be hard to select the best one — that’s exactly why we’ve tested out a few top products and rounded them up for you here.

In this guide, we’ll explain what features are most important and help you determine which best trail camera on the market is the right fit for you.

Before we get started, though, it’s important to understand the key considerations you should make before purchasing one. These are attributes and features that all high-quality trail cameras should have to varying degrees. You’ll want to weigh these attributes in a manner that prioritizes what you value most.

Weather Protection

This is our most important attribute and it should be no surprise that our #1 pick was the most impressive in this category. Let’s face it, nobody is installing a trail camera in their living room – your camera is going to have to brave the elements. We looked for trail cameras that were waterproof first and there are many quality waterproof cameras. Next, we looked at additional, more severe elements such as snow and wind. That’s where we became impressed by our “best of best” pick, the Creative XP.

Angle Lens Width

The width of your angle lens is directly correlated with how much real estate you can capture. A lens below 90 degrees is unsatisfactory in our book and we were sure to remove trail cameras from our list if they fell below that threshold. It’s difficult to see the difference between cameras that are 110 vs 120 degrees, but when you compare cameras with differences of 20 degrees or more of width, it’s remarkable how much more area you see.

Trigger Speed

This feature is a catch-22 situation. While you want a trigger speed lower than 0.5 seconds, it’s hard to notice the difference once you get below that range. All of the trail cameras we considered had an adequate trigger speed. We prioritize this lower than other features such as weather protection, memory card inclusion and the width of a lens angle.

Memory Card

To utilize a trail camera properly, you’re going to need a memory card. While most of these cameras accomodate smaller sizes, you’re going to want 32 GB or more of storage. Some trail cameras appear to be lower priced but when you open up the packaging, you realize you have to go buy a $10 – 30 memory card. The best trail cameras include a memory card with decent GB capacity in their offerings.