How to Get the Best Animal Photos

Reviewing footage captured by trail cameras is a great way to monitor your herd and survey the wildlife in your area. Strategically placing your cameras for optimal photos is a great way to learn habits, which will put you a step ahead of the game come hunting season.

Placement

Place your trail cameras in the areas where you need the most surveillance. If you want to monitor the amount of activity on your trails, you’ll need a trail camera with a faster trigger speed to catch moving wildlife. Any wildlife passing through a trail will be moving quickly and your shutter speed should be prepared for anything. Make sure to place the camera in an area that can be hidden easily. Use the natural vegetation as camouflage or drape your own foliage over it.

Pointing a trail camera at your food plot is a good way to monitor how much the animals are eating. You will be able to determine what kind of animals eat your feed (deer, raccoons, squirrels, etc.) It is important to know whether your food plot is thriving, or if it’s only attracting pests. Snapping pictures of the activity will also show you what time of day the animals feed and how much they eat at each sitting. You might find that your deer eat twice as much at one time of day over the other and you can use this information to plan accordingly. The trigger speed on cameras monitoring a food plot can be turned down to a relatively low frequency. Otherwise, you will be flooded with pictures of the same deer for hours.

Distance

A good rule of thumb for placement is about 5-10 yards away from the desired target area. You’ll get the best pictures if your camera isn’t facing the sun. Make sure the subject area is clear of anything that might obstruct the camera. Think ahead to all weather conditions. Even if a plant doesn’t look like it would interfere, imagine a harsh windstorm. Would the camera still hold up? You should ideally place the cameras well above the deer’s face level and angle the camera down. Some of the deer will be so scared of the camera staring directly into their face that they won’t come anywhere near it.

General Maintenance

Make sure the date and time settings are up to date. Technology may be sophisticated, but it’s not immune to glitches. If your camera time is off because you forgot to change it for daylight savings, or the system froze, that would drastically alter your findings. Make sure you’re not checking your cameras too often. If you do start to see activity, trekking out to your camera every day will leave behind your scent and scare off any wildlife that might have been starting to frequent the area. Choose a high capacity card that holds a high number of pictures at one time so that your trips to the field are limited.

It may not be hunting season, but these summer months are the ideal time to do some serious prep work. We all know that games aren’t won on the field, they’re won with the hours of practice put in during the months leading up to the game. The same principle applies to hunting. Some of the most important research can be done while the leaves are still green. How do you set up your cameras?